


Silver or Lead

by Permission



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Agnostic Author BS her way through Roman Catholicism, Alternate Universe, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Organized Crime, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Self-Insert, Unconventional Uses for Dying Will Flames, Until it isn't, Worldbuilding, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-10-24 20:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17711231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Permission/pseuds/Permission
Summary: Being born into crime is already about as unlucky as you can get, but being born into the backwater of criminal nations... well, at least María is Mexican and Proud.SI/OC is reborn into a criminal Mexican family.(Story starts before cannon and builds towards it. Will eventually get there, however.)





	1. Chapter 1

Ramiro sat motionless on the nursery’s rocking chair.

The lights had long been turned off. Now only streetlights and a single beam of moonlight shining through the window illuminated the walls of María’s room.

Said baby slept on through the night in the exact way every adult person in the couple’s life had promised the young couple that their first-born wouldn’t. From his spot on the corner, Ramiro could see the slow rise and fall of the baby’s - _his baby’s!_ \- chest.

 _‘What were we thinking?’_ the father asked himself, running a hand through his slicked back hair, letting a silent sigh escape him. Just how was he supposed to raise the kid?! Laura there to help him or not, the only experience the young man had with kids were the brats the cartels sometimes dumped on him to take up the mountain to train. At least those were verbal and potty trained! This one was days old and  _innocent_.

If it weren’t for Laura’s constant reassurances during the pregnancy that ‘ _Yes, I want you to be there for her,’_ and ‘ _No, I don’t think you’ll fuck her up. Now, can you please pass the salt?’_ he would have made his escape a long time ago for the brat’s sake.

Or maybe not. Ramiro spared a thought to the many  _halcones_  that cartels ‘sourced’ from orphanages when they had a shortage. The more trustworthy people standing in the way of María being taken into the underworld by force, the better. ( _Even though he himself was a one-way, fast lane ticket to it fuc-)_

“Ramiro, _amor_ , come on. Get back in bed. I promise she’ll still be here in the morning,” his sleepy wife yawned from the doorway, leaning on the frame.

Ramiro loved his wife, he truly did, but Laura looked _awful_. She was still recovering from the pregnancy. Dark eyebags underlined her steely-grey eyes and her steps remained marked with a limp almost a month after she’d given birth. Nevertheless, once they returned home, she had carried on with her job and taking care of María like nothing had changed.

 _Unlike you. You just follow behind her and stare like an absolute pendejo. Get your shit together._ The dark brunette tried to hide his internal monologue from his wife with a strained smile, “It’s alright. At least if she starts crying, I can take care of it, no? You, on the other hand, need to sleep. Let me do  _something_  for once.” 

They both knew that was a weak defense at best. The baby had not done more than fuss silently since getting home, and those times were mostly to alert the new parents there was a diaper to change or some other normal baby issue to resolve.

Regardless, not a night went by where once Ramiro returned from work, he would not make a stop by his newly-born daughter’s room and sit and stare in silence.

Laura gave him a pointed look and raised a brow, clearly letting him know they were both on the same page regarding his bullshit. He sucked at lying to her.

“Whatever. I need to wake her up anyways. She’s due for feeding soon.” Strutting into the room, the brunette reached into the crib and picked up their daughter.

Ramiro watched as the baby came back into awareness, quiet-but-distressed noises telling the parents she was awake.

For a second the father thought her muffled sobs would turn into a proper cry, however, once her mother's unoccupied hand made its way into the sparse-but-thick locks of hair plastered to the baby’s head, she quieted down.

The man followed as his wife and daughter moved to the kitchen to warm up some milk for the drooling infant. He took a seat at the table, knowing Laura had it handled. With one hand holding María and the other prepping the bottle, she made quick work of the baby’s… dinner?

“Here, can you please hold her for a minute while I get a towel?” Not waiting for a response, Laura dumped María on Ramiro and made a quick exit towards the hallway before her husband could complain. Looking down at the handful of baby he now had, the Sicario looked into his daughter’s still sleepy stare.

Her droopy eyes remained the blue hue the doctors said would shift eventually to reveal her actual eye color, but he secretly hoped that the grey tone would stick. He much preferred his wife’s grey eyes to his own brown.

The baby ignored his silent staring, however. She seemed much more preoccupied with trying to get comfortable enough to go back to sleep, if he was reading her wiggling correctly.

Sighting, he shifted the newborn to face him. “Sorry, but you have to eat right now,” He chuckled at the indignant squeak she gave at his shuffling. “You’re as loud as your Mama, aren’t you?” Carefully, he tucked one of the still sweaty locks behind her ear. “…for the better, I suppose.” She sneezed.                     

From the doorway, Laura silently looked on with a satisfied smile as the father and daughter bonded.

* * *

María Valeria Rodriguez Velasquez was born on a chilly morning on January 31, 1983, to Ramiro Bruno Rodriguez Rosas and Laura Xochil Velasquez de Rodriguez nee Ocampo in a six-hour delivery with minimal complications.

At the time, Ramiro and Laura were young. Twenty-five and Twenty-two respectively. Both were without families to rely on in the face of their first baby, but they made do. They both agreed María Valeria, or just María as they’d taken to calling her, was a peaceful child. This worked out just fine for the first-time parents.

They both thought their daughter seemed to want to rush through graduation from baby to toddlerhood to childhood, but she was a quick learner and seemed happy enough to the couple, so they let it slide without comment. _So what_ if she spaced out when they left her to her own devices? Whenever they picked her back up, she was fine as rain! And she was done with that by the time she turned one, so who were they to complain about a minor hiccup in their otherwise perfectly healthy daughter?

All in all, Laura and Ramiro loved their little girl. They weren’t the most outwardly loving people out there, but they made sure to shower their child with their own brand of affection.

And as for María herself?

She was a normal toddler, just slightly above average in the brains department.

The girl looked like a little copy of her mother, having inherited the woman’s face, brown hair, and eyes. However, she’d clearly inherited her skin from her much darker father. All in all, if one ignored her gray eyes, the little brunette with thick lashes and small build looked like the epitome of the Mexican _mestiza_. With her looks she’d probably never stand out amongst the people of her country, but she was cute, nonetheless.

She was also surprisingly independent once things were shown to her clearly. She was a helping hand around the house by the time she turned 4 and by age 6 she was mostly in charge of fully cleaning up after herself.

Yes, María was a normal child with a slightly brighter than normal disposition.  All in all, nothing out of the ordinary to be found by anybody who may have looked.

Two months before her fourth birthday, Laura and Ramiro sit her down and tell her she’s going to be a big sister. The girl is mostly confused by the concept of a sibling, but gradually warms up to the idea. Yes, she’d be a good older sister, the couple think. She was already so dependable for her age. She’d be a great help once their second little miracle comes along.

Seven months and three weeks later, the pregnancy turns out to be a buy-one-get-two sort of deal, and the family of three-going-on-five are handed a set of fraternal twins. Laura and Ramiro had only planned for one baby, but still welcome the two new additions to the family with open hands and hearts. The babies are a boy and a girl. They named the boy Miguel Santiago and the girl Maite Ximena.

Besides coming to the realization of just how unnaturally easy baby María was growing up, the couple finds both twins also grow up normally. Miguel Santiago, the older one of the pair, grows into another mostly quiet child. While not as quick to learn or become independent as his elder sibling, he doesn’t seem to suffer from the absentmindedness María had at that age, so the couple just make an observation of their differences and move on. Maite Ximena, on the other hand, is a complete menace compared to her elder siblings. She cries over nothing and screams whenever the mood suits her. The couple are bewildered by the moodier, louder child, but ultimately assume it was too much to expect a perfect score in regard to their children’s volume control.

The three siblings grew up close. The parent’s unashamedly leaving María to handle looking after the twins after they learn to talk and go to the bathroom on their own. Really, nothing abnormal was to be found in their lives by nobody. After enough time, even the parents were lulled into a false sense of security at the lack of problems in their lives.

Truly, they should have known better. Shit always hits the fan when you’re not looking.

* * *

Sever-year-old María walked her siblings back from a day at the park.

There was nothing new about this. Her parents were busy. Papa was out on a job, and Mama was running errands downtown. Besides, somebody needed to get rid of the extra energy her younger siblings had if they wanted them to go to bed that night.

María liked her sleep. If the twins didn’t get put to bed on time, Mama wouldn’t read her the next tale from the book Papa had sent her the previous week from Michoacán.

Doing this was okay so long as Mama read her the next story.

The younger siblings walked quietly behind her. The silence was not new on Santiago’s part. The middle child was by far the shiest of the three. He hesitated to speak when not prompted and was rarely found in the company of people who were not his immediate family.

María’s sister’s silence, however, was incriminating. Maite had gotten  _another_ kid at the park to cry that day. María knew her sister wasn’t even sorry. The youngest child’s silence was not for herself, but for her elder sibling, who had publicly scolded her after catching sight of her sister standing over a sobbing 4-year-old.

At least despite not having witnessed the beginning of the abuse, María was confident her sister hadn’t even touched the kid. After all, she knew her sister only needed a little bit of time and some words to reduce her peers into messy tears.

María didn’t really care about the other child personally, but she knew she had to scold the younger girl. If Maite got in trouble, Mama and Papa would have to deal with the kid’s family. They had other stuff to worry about already, and the brunette took pride in being a good daughter and responsible sister. She was still over twice their age.

The trio finally arrived at the entrance of their home. María dugs into her backpack for the set of keys to open the gate and front door and let her siblings into their home before her. As always, she locked the gate behind her and walked into the house. As she was about to yell to Maite to take off her shoes before entering, she heard heavy footsteps coming from inside their house.

Poking her head through the bars on the kitchen window, María caught sight of a familiar muscled back in a dirty wife beater with a head of so-dark-it-was-almost-black brown hair on top. Rushing past her siblings, María ran into the house and straight into her father’s arms.

“Papa! You’re back early!” María’s arms circled her father’s neck like a vice as he picked her up. The man chuckled tiredly as he hugged her back.

From the corner of her eye, María spotted her siblings entering the house. As soon as they spotted their father, they each dashed to clutch a leg of their own.

“How was your trip?” Came the shy voice of the boy clutching the left leg. Ramiro smiled down at his son and ruffled the mop of black hair that mirrored his own.

“It was okay  _mijo_ , but due to some complications Papa got to come back home early, so it’s all good.” Slowly ripping off a child at a time from his person, the father set them all down. Quickly taking off his shirt and handing it over to the eldest child, he asked Maria, “ _Cariño,_  could you please pop this into the washing machine for me? Thanks.”

Happy to help her Papa, María took the shirt and ran over to their washing machine in the backyard. Perusing the white fabric, she quickly spotted the darkening red staining the back left of the shirt.  She fetched a pail and filled it halfway up with cold water from the tap. Taking the shirt, she dumped it inside and then used her hands to make sure it is soaked completely. Once that was done, she dried her hands with a towel nearby and headed back into the kitchen.

She would come back to chuck the shirt into the wash later. For now, the blood staining it needed to get loose.

* * *

María didn’t remember the first time she learned what the family occupation was.

It’s most likely that she was never explicitly told by either of her parents about their profession. Rather, she read it in between the lines of her parent’s conversations. In the words they used when there was a new murder in the news. In the handful of guns hidden throughout the house. The way her Mama handled the kitchen knives when she cooked dinner.

Yes, María was never told her parents are less than lawful. Rather, her world view was molded early on to the resemble that of the cartels rather than what a ‘good’ Mexican girl’s should be.

Neither of her parents entertained the thought of giving her a chance at a normal civilian life either. After all, in a place like Juarez, that’s little more than a myth. Where they live, it’s easier to answer the question of who  _isn’t_ involved with the cartels than who is.

So, no. María never learns to question the violence in her father’s stories or the time her mother walked her through shooting one of the guns they had underneath the coffee table. Instead of hesitating, the girl takes the information and slots it right next to the lessons on doing the dishes and how to wash clothes. Dutiful as she was, she took to everything with the same eagerness and eventual pride as she did anything else her parents taught her.

As far as María was concerned, being good at these things would make her parents proud, and that was all she needed to know before fully throwing herself at whatever they put in front of her with her short-but-intense spans of attention.

But nobody bothered to tell her why she was learning these things so early.

That, perhaps, was her parent’s biggest mistake.

* * *

“-and I don’t know why the teacher says I can’t go to the bathroom without asking her in English,” complained María from her kid’s seat in the back. Her mother smiled and glanced back at her through the rearview mirror.

María and her mother were driving down the highway on the way home. Mama had just picked her up from school for the day. They were on their way to pick up Santiago and Maite from day-care. As usual, María was sharing with her mother what she had done in class that day.  

“It’s important that you learn to speak English, María. We live right next to an English-speaking country. How are you going to speak to the gringos otherwise?” The little girl, however, didn’t find speaking to the gringos like a good enough reason for her to learn English.

“But Mama, I don’t need to learn English! They need to learn Spanish! English doesn’t make any-” The girl’s complains were interrupted by the crack of breaking glass. Before María had the time to realize there was now a hole on the windshield, Laura’s had already floored the gas pedal.

“MARÍA! Get down right now! Where the windows can’t see you! Quickly!” Her mother’s tone had left no space for her to ask questions. With the feeble dexterity her eight-year-old hands had, she unbuckled her child seat belt and squeezed herself down on the car floor. She couldn’t tell where her mother was taking the car, but she felt her make a sharp left and speed down a road they had never taken before.

“Mama, what about Diego and Maite?” her voice trembled as she asked over the sound of bullets hitting the back of the vehicle.

The older woman didn’t spare her a glance. Instead, gripping the wheel tighter while trying to crouch her own head as far down as possible while not losing her sight of the road, she called out to her daughter.

“They’ll be fine, María! For now, we need to get away. I promise Mama will get us away safely, alright?” One hand letting go of the wheel, the mother of three dug behind her own seat and pulled out a small handgun. “María! You remember how to use this, correct?” Not waiting for an answer, she handed the frozen girl the pistol without glancing back. She could hear the gunshots piercing holes on the rear of the car. “I need you to take this. If somebody shoots Mama or stops the car you need to use it, okay?” pointing to the seat next to hers, she told the eight-year-old, “Now I need you to get the other gun underneath that seat and give it to me!” Taking another sharp turn, Laura slammed her hand on the car’s horn. “Where’s  _la jura_  when you fucking need them?!”

Suddenly, María felt a couple pops resonate from the bottom of the car. The vehicle started slowing down until it slowly came to a stop. María promptly handed her mother the much larger gun from underneath the seat. Laura didn’t even get out of her seat, instead just twisting back and opening fire on the car behind them.

“MARÍA! Grab the gun and get out of here! Call your father!” her mother yelled over the sound of the gun, but María was frozen. She had tucked herself into a ball on the car’s floor, her hands clutching the pistol her mother gave her like a lifeline. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. The fear weighted her arms down like lead and held down her legs like concrete.

 _Am I gonna die?!_ The sound of her mother’s gun kept firing on above her. She catches a glimpse of a bullet as it grazes her mother’s forearm, halting her firing for a second. The older brunette took a split second to adjust her grip and continues firing.

 _What about Santiago and Maite?!_ Shots had begun hailing from the front of the vehicle now. They were surrounded. Laura was still firing towards the back when a bullet buried itself into the woman’s shoulder. Her mother’s cry finally made María snap into action.

“MAMA!” As María stood up to reach her mother, the car door behind her opened. She turned to look back when a large pair of hands grabbed her. She looked up with blurry eyes at the faces of a man with a ring piercing his nose and another man standing next to him, cocking a pistol towards her. The meaty hands holding her in place tightened until they became painful.

“Let me go!” The second man pressed the barrel of the still-warm gun against the side of her head. The girl choked on a wave of utter fear at her powerlessness to escape them. Then, she felt something inside her snap.

María’s world lit up in red.

The man with the nose ring who had grabbed María hissed as he suddenly let her go, his hands suddenly covered in angry-red flames.

He fell to the ground, screaming and clutching his stomach with a pair of still-burning hands. His partner looked from him to María in fear. He made a move to repoint the gun towards her face, but as he pressed the barrel to her temple it caught on fire and disintegrated. María moved to push the gun away from her face when she grabbed the man’s hand. He screamed. Although his hands were not scorched like the other man’s were, he cried out and grabbed at his arms like they were on fire too.

Free from her would-be captors, María picked her gun back up and rushed over to the other side of the car. There, she saw her mother struggling in the arms of two men. Just as she was about to call out, a third man shot her mother in the stomach.

The girl’s blood froze.

María was there before she registered her body had moved.

“LET MAMA GO!” She pushed at the pair holding her mother down. Beneath her hands, the fabric of the men’s shirts seemingly evaporates. They both keeled over. As Laura struggled for her next breath, the woman turned her head and saw her daughter standing behind her. The eight-year-old saw her mother’s eyes widened at the sight of her.

Offhandedly, María noticed the man who had shot her mother was also staring at her. Quickly snapping out of his stupor, he pointed his gun and shot María. The mother and daughter looked in stupefaction at the reddening hole in the girl’s stomach.

María stared at the blood rushing out of her stomach but couldn’t seem to feel it. She looked back up to the man with the gun. He was raising the gun to shoot the girl again -this time in the face- when he was tackled by Laura.

The two of them grappled for a second before a shot rang out. Laura looked at the bullet hole in her assaulter’s check and looked back at her daughter.

María was crouched next to the body of one of the two men who had held Laura down. In her hands lied a pile of ashes with bits of a quickly-dissolving barrel sticking out. Going by the ashes that covered the side of the corpse’s pants, the gun had been his. The girl stared at the body of the man she’d shot with a glazed look in her eyes.

The bleeding woman had a second to wonder whether her daughter was going into shock when María fell over in a dead faint.

The sound of sirens rang out in the distance.


	2. Chapter 2

María woke up from one instant to the next. She looked to her left. Her father was sleeping across an old looking couch, the shutters marking his body in stripes of light. To her right, she saw her mother lying in an elevated bed, left arm covered in bandages.

She looked down at her own body.

The short limbs of an eight-year-old barely took up any space on the hospital bed. Her arms were bare with the exception of an I.V. on her right forearm.

 _I’m alive_ , she acknowledged. _But I’m also dead, aren’t I?_ She took a second to ponder over the thought.

Because María Valeria Rodriguez Velasquez may still be alive, but the eight-year-old could clearly remember being much, much older. She could also remember a different name, a different country, a different _language_. She took another look at her still sleeping parents. _A different family_.

Seems whatever had helped her fight back had also had even more ways than _impromptu superpowers_ to try to help her live to see another day.

Not that she understood how getting the memories of a twenty-something American college student was supposed to help her in an ambush against _Mexican narcos_ , but she was honestly far past the point of questioning the freaking logic of her apparent new reincarnation.

 _Nicole Rojas Zimmerman_ hadn’t had any combat or self-defense experience. She hadn’t been adept at any physical activity, either. She’d only been a Hispanic immigrant kid half way through her B.A. on freaking _Latin American Studies_ of all things when she’d accidentally overdosed on some pills at a frat party.

María cringed at the thought of Nicole’s death. It hadn’t been a pretty sight, or a nice way to go either. She spared a thought to all the other kids who must have had to deal with the fallout of her death at the party.

Well, she wouldn’t feel too bad. They _had_ technically killed her by virtue of bringing all the stuff she’d popped that night. At least she knew Nicole’s family would shamelessly blame everybody else before actually blaming her. They’d been infinitely loyal like that while Nicole had still been alive.

Oh god. If she had still been Nicole, she would have freaked over the thought of her parents finding out she was dead.

But she wasn’t Nicole anymore, was she? _No_ , she refuted with certainty in her head, _Not anymore_. The confidence in the statement brought with it a calm María hadn’t realized she was missing. Taking a second to breath in and out like Nicole used to in a past life, the girl thought back to the events of the previous day.

 _I killed a man. No,_ she corrected herself, _I killed a few men._ Five to be precise. She took a second to file the information. She knew that had she still been Nicole she would have been far more affected. Heck, she would have been _horrified_ to feel as little as she did now.

 _But I’m not her anymore, am I?_ She could suddenly see very clearly how she wasn’t the same person anymore. Before, she would have been disgusted and terrified at such an _evil_ act, but _now_?

María herself understood that _good_ and _evil_ were relative things _._ After all, nobody saw themselves as the bad person in their own narrative, rather, each individual’s own definition of good was very different from somebody else’s. Hell, her parents were _good_ people by lots of common standards. They were good parents. They were faithful to each other. They were even mildly religious. Just because they did their jobs, even if those jobs included criminal activities, did not change every other aspect of their character. Even _murder_ couldn’t be qualified as a simple act of pure evil. Righteous and moral people killed every day. In wars, for the sake of patriotism, _in self-defense_. María knew all of this, and therefore refused to make herself sick over some naive illusion of morality from a previous life. How could the girl try to feel bad when her own _parents_ had already shown her the truth of the matter her entire life? It was ironic how, despite her age, she was already less naive than Nicole had ever been.

The young girl looked back at her sleeping mother, her brow closely knitted together in pain, even while asleep. She looks at the I.V. in her arm. Had she died, she wouldn’t have been able to help her mother out. They would have both been dead. María had no doubts that the lives of the men she’d killed were not worth even a fraction of the value of the life of her mother and her own were. She would not hesitate to do it over again.

And with that thought, María went back to sleep.

* * *

 “ _Cari_ _ño_ , wake up!” María jumped up in the hospital bed, bright awake. Her chest heaved as if she had just ran a marathon. Hurriedly, she began pulling at her gown, uncovering the smooth and unmarred skin of her stomach. She felt the skin and frowned. She could still hear the sound of the gunshots in her ears, feel the blood slip between her fingers. There was a burn down in her stomach that made her taste bile in the back of her throat. She noted somebody had pushed a paper cup full of water into her hands and was gently guiding it towards her parched mouth.

 “ _Mija_ , you’re in the hospital. It was just a nightmare.” Ramiro was propped up by her headboard, warm hand gently rubbing her back while the other one took back the cup once she was finished drinking.

“Papa, I’m sorry.” María didn’t even know what she was apologizing for, but it felt like she needed to say it. She felt something tickle her face. Pulling her hand back she realized it was tear-tracks running down her cheeks. The girl clutched her sheets like a lifeline. She didn’t know if she was crying over the memory of the assault, or the last few bits of memory that had just come back to her, but her father’s hand on her back felt comforting either way.  

“Oh María, there’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m _so proud_ of you.” His other hand finds its way to her hair. He turned his head towards the door, body still shielding the child from the rest of the room, and asked her, “ _Mija_ , if you’re feeling up to it, could a nurse check you over?” Without giving a verbal response, María leaned her head further into her father’s palm and nodded. Gently pulling away to give the nurse just enough space to check over his daughter, Ramiro hovered over the girl’s bedside until the woman was done. Once she gave him an all-clear, he was back to María’s side, pushing her back into the covers and tucking her once more.

“Go back to sleep, María. I’ll be here when you wake up” Lulled back into sleep by her father’s gentle petting of her hair, the brunette was out like a light.

Once Ramiro was sure she was deeply asleep, he pulled back her sheets from where she’d bunched them.

Just like the paper cup, the sheets had hand-shaped burns on them.

* * *

María breathed in the smell of _Palo Santo_ and home as she stepped into her house after a week in the hospital.

“We’re home.” A second later her younger siblings attempted to tackle one of her legs each. María could hear the muted laugh from her parents as they entered the house behind her.

 _Oh, damn._ María couldn’t help but look away from the puppy dog eyes Santiago was making. She thought he looked like someone -namely her- had shot a stray cat in front of him. María hadn’t considered how her siblings would feel about the attack, mostly assuming they wouldn’t understand due to their age and simply let it go. _That doesn’t seem to be the case, however_.

“I bet you froze the second you saw a gun.” Maite wore the most mocking and smug look María had ever seen on a four-year-old’s face in _either_ of her lives. In fact, had it not been for the little hands that squeezed her leg even tighter than Santiago, María would have assumed her younger sister even _meant_ the words that had come out of her mouth.

Nevertheless, María couldn’t let her sister walk all over her. Flicking the silver haired girl - _and wasn’t that a mind fuck and a half, her sister’s hair was naturally silver and nobody thought it was weird-_ in the forehead, the elder sibling sneered down at the youngest.

“Oh, like you’d do much better.” Prying the children off her legs, María escaped towards the kitchen. The food at the hospital had been _terrible_. She was in desperate need of something that didn’t come prepackages or through an I.V.

While she dug through the fridge, her mother had sent the rest of the family out to give the two some space. Once María was content with her raid of the kitchen a pointed glance from her mother had her sitting down across from the woman at their breakfast nook.

Her mother sat with her spine ramrod straight. Her left arm wrapped from her palm all the way up to her shoulder and all held tightly together by a cast. The doctors had said that she would recover most of the mobility of the shoulder, but it would never return to its full mobility again.

 _It sure doesn’t look like it though._ María was pretty confident her mother could have lost the entire arm and still have been able to look like the one in control of any room she walked into.

Her mother’s laser-sharp stare broke her out of her thoughts, “ _Mija_ , we need to talk.” _Well, that’s not ominous at all._ Meeting her mother’s gaze, the brunette girl sat her food to the side and swallowing the handful of grapes she’d shoved into her mouth, turned her full attention towards Laura. Once she’d taken a seat across her mother, the woman continued.

With a voice much softer this time, Laura began, “María, can you tell me what you remember from the shooting?” María felt her shoulders tense without her input. She… hadn’t been avoiding thinking about what happened per se, but she hadn’t had to voice it out loud to anyone before. Now that she thought about it, there hadn’t even been an interrogation from the cops. Something told her that wasn’t an accident.

“I… well, first they started shooting at us from a car,” nodding at her daughter to continue, Laura signaled her to keep going, “And then I think they shot our tires? That’s why the car stopped.” Laura’s bandaged arms stretched over the table to hold María’s own in comfort.

“And what happened when we got separated?” María’s hands tightened inside her mother’s hold.

“Well, there were t-two men.” Why was she stuttering?! She wasn’t some scared civilian! She was the daughter of _seasoned criminals_. Feeling shameful at her sign of weakness despite her mother’s reassurances, María broke eye contact and instead looked down at their united hands, hers just barely darker than her mother’s. “One of them held me down a-and the other one pointed a pistol at me.” It was Laura’s own turn to tighten her hold on her daughter’s hands.

“María, how did the men die? Can you tell me, _cari_ _ño_?” Pulling her hands into her lap, the girl broke the physical contact with her mother and looked down at the table.

 “I think I forgot Mama. I must have shot them with the gun you gave me though.” Laura’s brows knitted together into a frown. Moving out of her seat and coming over to María’s side of the table, Laura gingerly picked up her daughter with one arm and sat her down in her lap. María would have complained. _She wasn’t scared or guilty dammit!_ But her mother’s reassurance did wonders to drive out the unbalanced sensation the conversation was making her feel.

“You know, back when I was about your siblings’ age, my own Mama used to tell me stories about… people in our world who could do some incredible stuff.” Here, her mother paused to make sure she was listening. “In those stories, these people could do incredible things. They could fly, become as hard as lead, freeze anything solid-” María’s head shoot up. The hint of understanding chilling her to the core. _No, there’s no way_ \- “-or heal a dying man with a single touch. But they all had _one thing_ in common.” Here, Laura made sure to look her daughter in the eye. “They could all conjure _fire_.” The woman buried her hand into the girl’s brown locks. “But I’m getting sidetracked. My point is, I promise I’ll believe whatever you think you did to kill those men. But whatever it may be, Mama _needs_ to know so she can deal with it properly.” Giving her daughter a pointed look, the woman waited for María to speak up.

But what the heck was she supposed to say?! ‘ _You’re right_ Mama, I’m actually pretty sure I killed the men with my _melty, red light superpowers._ ’ Or perhaps, ‘You know what? That story actually sounds a lot like _a series I followed in a_ _past life_ , except I don’t think we’re both talking about a show here.’ María knew she had to say something though. Her mother _was_ right about needing to deal with it. Who knew what the autopsy would return for how the men died? _Wait-_

“Mama, why did nobody come ask us questions about the shooting? Did the police ever talk to you?” Oh god, were they going to have to deal with sweeping the investigation under the rug?! Jesus Christ. And she'd thought dealing with a second set of memories of another life would be her biggest issue. She was not ready to deal with the possibility of having… what were they called? Flames of death? Fire of will? It had been a while since Nicole had watched the anime.

Also, _was she in a freaking anime world?!_

“Don’t worry. Your Papa took care of everything. A lot of people owe him favors, you know?” Oh _thank god_ , María did _not_ think she was equipped to handle body disposal _yet_. “But don’t avoid my question María Valeria. You still need to tell me what happened. Now spill.” _Seriously_ , where did her mother learn to _interrogate people_ of all things?!

“…I don’t know. I think I set the first man, the one who grabbed me, on fire by accident? When he let me go, his hands were burning, and he was hunched over. The second one was trying to shoot me, so I tried to knock the gun away, but I think something happened to it after I touched it?? It didn’t fire, and when I went to knock his hand away he also grabbed it like it was on fire, but _it wasn’t._ ” She still couldn’t understand what exactly had happened to him. God, that was going to bother her until she figured it out, wasn’t it?

“… probably the same thing that happened to the pair that were with me,” Laura muttered. Her mother was no longer paying attention to her, however. She looked deep in thought and slightly troubled judging by the crease marring her brow.

“So am I free to go now?” With a barely-there nod, Laura let her go. María turned back to her food on the counter.

Whatever happened now, she was still hungry.

* * *

 Once Ramiro and the twins returned with María’s favorite ice cream to celebrate their return, the brats scuttled away to eat as much as possible before one of the parents took the _cazata_ away. Ramiro plopped on the couch next to Laura with an overly dramatic sigh.

“I swear those two don’t understand the concept of _tired.”_ Putting a careful arm around his wife, the _sicario_ asked, “So what’s the verdict on María’s first hit?” Laura frowned at his wording but leaned into the embrace anyways.

“Apparently, she _set fire to_ one of the fuckers who was holding her down and then gave the rest the world’s worst stomach ache.” Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Laura let her husband comfort her. She had been tense ever since the shootout.  Seeing her daughter get shot point blank in the stomach was the absolute last thing she ever wanted to see. Waking up the next morning to learn that apparently there was no bullet hole to be found, just an unexplainable case of fatigue and low blood pressure, hadn’t helped her feel any better, but instead had just frayed her nerves even further.

“Ouch. So she has the fire thing, yeah?”

“I can’t think of anything else that would cause an eight-year-old to _glow red_. She must have the storm will if the European’s stories are correct.” Turning to face her husband, Laura’s eyes widened. “I know you said you’d take care of the bodies and the cover-up, but you don’t think they’ll recognize the deaths as flames, right?”

“No, it will be okay. The autopsy I had Mario do only found some serious ulcers and internal bleeding besides the man she shot. Three of them were only bottom level _soldados_ and the one with the new second mouth was the only actual _sicario_ , so I left the soldiers in a car full of acidic pills and syringes and then dropped the sucker in the doorsteps of the station of the lieutenant working for the Chihuahua.”

“Well, the ulcers explain why they just fell over.” That was at least one question less than before. Guess her kid had the power of spontaneous internal bleeding. That was… useful. Completely clean if one didn’t count the fact she lit up like a red glowstick when she did that. Then she recalled what he’d said before.

Twitching in his grip, Laura gripped Ramiro’s hand.

“Wait, so only four?! What about the fifth thug?” Ramiro’s eyes widened in realization. He stood to go grab the telephone in the kitchen and dialed a number Laura didn’t catch. Laura gingerly moved to stand up from her spot, her left side still hurting from the shootout. After a brief conversation with what Laura suspected was one of the rats in the squad that served as first responders after the shooting, Ramiro thanked the person on the other end and hung up.

“There was a pile of ash on one side of the car. They didn’t think anything odd about it.” Releasing a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, Laura relaxed and sat back down in relief.

“ _Oh thank god.”_ Sitting back down next to her, her lover rubbed her back.

“Congratulations, honey. María just did her first successful body disposal.”

Laura couldn’t help it. She snorted.

* * *

 Santiago woke up in the pitch-black room he shared with Maite. It took his sleep-addled brain a few seconds to recognize the muffled, sporadic thumping against the wall that had waken him. It was coming from the wall that divided Maite and his’ shared room from their elder sister’s.

Quietly, the middle child crept past his sister’s bed -Maite was a deep sleeper but Santiago knew she had a sixth sense for when other people were doing something they weren’t supposed to- and through the opened door. They never fully closed it at night because the twins got scared -although Maite would never admit it herself- so he managed to open the door without making a sound.

Once in the hallway, Santiago slowly opened the door to his sister’s room. From the doorway, he could see her body shifting and twisting underneath the sheets. Her movements would sporadically make the bedframe bump against their shared wall. The three-almost-four-year-old child made his way into the room until he was standing next to her. Extending a hand to shake his elder sister awake from what he thought was a nightmare, he softly grabbed her arm.

Before he could call her name and gently ask her to wake up, María’s eyes snapped wide open. They were lit up in stop-light red. Her skin followed suit

Santiago screamed.

* * *

Maite sat in her pajamas and one of her sister’s old hoodies next to said brunette in the lobby of the ICU. Their father paced up and down the hallway, hands clenching and unclenching almost right on time with the ticking of the longest hand in the clock. Maite was sure of it, she’d been counting.

Besides her, María sat quietly. Her arms wrapped around her middle. Mama had tried comforting her earlier, telling her she knew it was an accident, but after a few minutes of their mother’s reassurances, it was clear none of it was reaching the girl. Papa, who’d gone in the ambulance with Santiago, had even asked one of the nurses to check on her once they’d met up at the hospital, but the nurse said she was okay, and that perhaps it would be better to give her some space. And neither of them having the emotional capacity to worry about another child at the moment, they decided to heed the nurse’s warning.

Although Papa had been the one to originally accompany Santiago to the hospital, after a brief conversation between the two, Mama had taken his place outside the operation room. Meanwhile, Papa had stayed in the lobby to look after the two of them. Maite didn’t know why they needed to be looked after _now_ , when they were usually fine with María looking after both her and Santiago all by herself.

Taking another glance at her sister’s unusually pale complexion, Maite reconsidered her sister’s ability to look after even herself at the moment. The brunette looked as sick as Maite had felt when she’d had caught a stomach virus _._ Maybe she shouldn’t be sitting so close to María if the girl could give her whatever disease was making her look like that.

Her sister probably wasn’t sick, however. Maite knew she was probably looking like that due to the fact that she had burned Santiago’s hand, even if it had been an accident. Maite had even seen it happen. She’d been woken up by the sound of her brother opening their sister’s door down the hallway from their room. Not having wanted to be left out of whatever her brother was doing, Maite had sneaked into their sister’s room just as Santiago woke María up. Her sister had lit herself up in a red glow and set fire to their brother’s hand.

 Maite thought María must have been confused ‘cuz she’d looked at Santiago with a face of fear she’d never shown either of the siblings before. Not even when she’d gotten yelled at by Mama had she ever looked at anybody with that face.

Maite wondered if her sister had made that face at the people who’d attacked her and Mama. Between learning someone had hurt her Mama and sister a few weeks ago, and now getting to both see her sister’s face of fear _and_ hearing her twin scream in pain, Maite was learning how much she disliked her family suffering. They really shouldn’t be allowed to do these things. They made her head hurt and her eyes sting with the need to shed hot tears. But Maite refused to cry. Crying was for stupid kids at the park who couldn’t deal with knowing the truths she told them. So, she wouldn’t cry despite it being really, really hard.

Now, how could she stop her family from doing these things, though? She couldn’t fight the people who hurt her Mama and her sister, ( _yet_ ) and she didn’t have anybody who she could fight against for the pain her brother was in or for how afraid her sister looked.

She’d think about it later. For now, maybe she should try to go distract her dad before he tripped over one of the willowy nurses dogging around his pacing frame.

* * *

“And this… _T_ _ío Rafael_ , when is he supposed to get here?” María wrapped her arms tighter around herself. She didn’t know how to feel about letting a stranger -even if he was a friend of Papa’s coming to help- into their home. From the looks of it, neither were her siblings.

Maite’s annoyed frown spoke of hard times ahead for their future guest, and Santiago’s look of uncertainty fully rounded out the trio’s fear of outsiders getting a direct access pass into their vulnerable home. Especially after the shooting and the… nightmare incident.

María still couldn’t look Santiago in the face, much less look at the new palm of his hand. The doctors had had to do a patchwork skin graft for the entire palm of the boy’s hand. His back now sported the scar left over from the mix of full thickness grafts they’d had to get for the pads of the fingers and the palm of the hand and the mixed thickness grafts they’d taken to cover the ligaments and joints. Supposedly, it was to allow him to maintain partial feeling in certain parts of the hand while letting the other parts recover most of the dexterity they’d had before. The end result had been a painful looking Frankenstein of a hand.

Not that they got to see it too often. Most of the time, the hand was slathered in a clear gel that made it look slimy and then wrapped into fresh bandages and a compression glove that held it all together nice and tight. He still wasn’t allowed to bend the fingers, and the bandages stopped him from even trying to, but they didn’t think he’d ever regain the full mobility of the hand due to the loss of elasticity.

María had gotten a single look at it the first day he’d come back from the hospital and mama had been helping him to do the wrap when she’d poked her head into the room. Needless to say, she’d hid inside her bedroom for the rest of the day, wallowing in guilt. Ever since, she’d barely spoken more than a handful of words at her brother before making an excuse to leave.

She couldn’t help it. This was her _kid brother_ who she’d _permanently disfigured._ She couldn’t even shrug it off as an unfortunate childish reaction to being woken up suddenly, because she had the memories of a _fully-grown woman who knew better_. María couldn’t even bring herself to face Santiago anymore. She could see he was upset at her evasiveness but was too passive to do anything about it. Her avoidance was only hurting him further, but she just _couldn’t bare looking at her mistake_. If anything, she’d never been more grateful for his tendency to not confront issues.

Papa interrupted her trail of thought, “He’s in the middle of finishing a job at the moment, but he should arrive sometime in the next two weeks if everything works out.” Recognizing his children’s frustration at the perceived intrusion of their home, he continued, “Look, I know you all don’t like the idea of somebody new coming into our home, but it will only be for a handful of months while Mama, me, and him aid your sister in getting her condition under control, alright?” The younger pair of eyes turned to their sister’s hands wrapped tightly around her middle.

María couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t risk accidentally harming anybody else with her flames. God knows what she’d have done if instead of just setting her brother on fire, she’d accidentally pulled the same internal bleeding stunt she’d done on the _soldados_ who’d ambushed her and her mother. She’d kept her arms glued to her sides or shoved inside her pockets ever since then. She’d even stopped letting her parents hold her for too long. She just couldn’t take that risk.

She saw Maite and Santiago share a wordless conversation in a glance in one of the few occasions they demonstrated that they _had_ , in fact, shared a womb once upon a time. Now she wouldn’t have another choice but to work with this _t_ _ío_ of theirs until they’d let her go free. She looked up to her Papa with a grumble and nodded in resignation.

Papa unsuccessfully tried to clamp down on the smile that sprung on his face. He’d clearly meant for the twins to force her hand for him.

Honestly, first interrogation and now extortion.

Just who’d taught her parents these things??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dying Will Flames?? In MY new reincarnation???!? It's more likely than you think. FREE PC CHECK!!! :D
> 
> Hello ya'll! Thank you to the people who left kudos and reviews since I posted the first chapter. I'm really proud of the fact that I posted this chapter in a reasonable amount of time despite having a busy week, so yeah, look at me being responsible and shit. I dead-ass wrote 3/4ths of this while riding the train, so that's p neat.  
> Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts and/or criticism so please feel more than welcome to leave me a review. I try to answer them whenever a response is appropriate so if you have nothing better to do let's talk about my wonderful OCs, Latin American History, and whatever you want.
> 
> Have a lovely rest of your day! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. Two weeks isn't bad for an update, but life got in the way.  
> Also, doing research on Catholic websites for this story was an awful idea. (Who knew catholic sites were a cesspool for viruses? not me, that's who.) I had to reset my computer due to all the shit I picked up on fucking catholic.com. I've taken to interpret this as a sign that religion's not for me.
> 
> Anyways, let me know what you thought, and I promise we're getting closer to canon, I'm just laying down the basics so that Maria has a legit reason to interact.

_Tío_ Rafael _,_ as it turned out, was an odd mix between a stereotypical queer guy and the archetype of the exotic latino. He was lithe and had a… nicely triangular figure.

You know, like that Chris Evans’ Dorito torso ratio?

Yeah, just like that.

Seriously, he even had the nicest golden tan and brown hair. Just _where_ did her Papa even find the guy? A male brothel?

He’d arrived a whole week later than anticipated and had greeted her Papa with a kiss on each cheek.

Was he European then? Maybe he was Italian…

Mama had not even faltered at the man’s willingness for physical touch. However, the woman thankfully hadn’t received the same treatment. Instead, she’d been bear hugged and picked up in the eccentric man’s arms.

(Thank god. Papa didn’t get jealous or anything, but her mother would probably have chopped his hand off if she felt harassed by the overly touchy man.)

The kids, on the other hand, tried to unsuccessfully hide behind each other in an attempt to escape from being manhandled by the brunet with half his shirt unbuttoned. Although they were a close family, physical affec _tio_ n was saved for private moments between loved ones. Definitely not for strangers making kissy faces.

María herself had a whole other reason to panic, however. The last few weeks had been an exercise in carefulness for the eldest of three. Her flames seemed to be anything but under her control. She’d lost count of the number of sheets she’d burned through while asleep in the past couple of weeks, and even her bed frame hadn’t survived her too long. Even while she was wide awake, if she got too distracted or caught up in her head, she’d become prone to leaving little hand shaped burns along furniture or turn papers into straight up ashy residue and smoke. According to Maite, the smell of smoke now seemed to have clung to her person. Hence, she’d stopped letting her family touch her and had started keeping her hands buried in her jacket pockets at all times. Getting picked up by some random dude with all that exposed skin out in the open seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Nevertheless, much to her dismay, it seemed like resistance was futile.  Tío Rafael was apparently strong enough to pick the trio up all at the same time and squeeze them in a mockery of a hug. The siblings all struggled to breathe as the man pressed them way too tightly against his chest, seemingly unaware of their suffering. María even heard Santiago make a noise not dissimilar to one a rubber duck would make.

María herself just tried to keep from hyperventilating at the feeling of her hands making contact with the man’s exposed skin.

“I can’t believe how big you all are!!! It’s like I was running jobs in Panama with your Papa just yesterday and now he’s married and has three adorable babies! Oh my god ‘miro, I can’t believe you’re leaving me in the dust like this! Unfair!” The man whose voice definitely did not have a Mexican accent turned to look accusingly at his friend, still squeezing the soul out of his children. Maite, María noted, was starting to turn an interesting shade of blue.

“Rafael, please put them down. I said I needed your help with teaching, not choking.” Papa had been rubbing his temples from the moment they’d answered the door to welcome the flamboyant man, but now he also wore what María recognized as his amused grin. She felt rather than saw Rafael huff in exasperation.

Letting the children down carefully on the ground, -thank god for that- Rafael raised an amused brow at the other man, “Still a killjoy, huh?”

Papa rolled his eyes, “Shove it. I still need to introduce you to everyone.” Putting an arm around Mama, he began.

“This is Laura, my wife.” Motioning towards the three kids sprawled on the floor, he pointed towards each one’s head as he listed, “The silver one is Maite, the youngest. Then, my middle child is Santiago. They’re twins, both four going on five.” Letting go of Laura, he picked María up off the floor by her armpits and made her turn to face her new tutor. At this point, she was just grateful he hadn’t tried to lift her by her hands.

“And this one is María, my oldest. She’ll be the one you’re tutoring.” Hanging like a limp cat from her father’s grip, María looked at the man’s blue eyes and froze.

Gone was the flamboyant gestures and overly excited faces. Now, in their place stood only a stare sharp enough to cut glass. She could practically _feel_ his eyes dissect her like a pair of scalpels. Suddenly, she felt very self-conscious about her willowy frame and messy braid. She shrank into herself, hands automatically digging deeper into her cardigan’s pockets.

But in the blink of an eye, the man’s former mannerisms returned like they’d never left. “Wonderful! Well, I’m pretty worn down from the flight here. We can start the training tomorrow _tesoro_ , but for now,” he said, turning towards Laura, “did I make it in time for lunch?” Mama smiled a placid smile and reached behind her back to untie the apron she’d been wearing.

“Yes, we were about to sit down actually. Diego, _cari_ _ño,_ could you please set another place in the table for your tío? And Maite, please help me bring the food to the table.” Turning towards the remaining people in the family, she continued, “Meanwhile, why don’t the rest of you sit down? Wouldn’t want the food to get cold, no?” And with that, Laura strutted back into the kitchen, the twins following behind her like little ducklings.

Looking back at their guest, María picked at the loose lint inside her jacket’s pockets.

Her new uncle was kind of intimidating.

* * *

“-and then he burst in and tackled him to the ground! And I was left standing there covering myself up with the boa and looking on as the two of them grappled. Honestly, I don’t understand why people would assume that _I’m_ the dramatic one when really it’s Ramiro over here who got us into the majority of the trouble when we partnered up.” María _was in tears_ she was giggling so hard _._

_Tío_ Rafael had decided to grace the family with stories from his and Papa’s time partnering together. María admitted she would never have believed half the shit he was saying had her Papa not looked in as much misery and regret as he did with every new anecdote. While Rafael recounted the wild adventures of their younger years, Ramiro had kept his eyes on the meal in front of him, stare trying to carve a hole in the table with just the heat of embarrassment behind it. Mama, on the other hand, just kept encouraging the -as the family soon became privy to- Argentinian man’s storytelling. A mischievous glint shining behind her smug smile.

_Tío_ Rafael’s stories had quickly escalated from nostalgic to amusing to downright obscene. He’d kept most of the, ah… less child-friendly aspects to a minimum with the generous use of innuendos, but María was unfortunately perfectly capable of understanding every single one of them. She seriously _did not_ want to know about her father’s old sexual escapades, like, _ever,_ but it seemed as if she wouldn’t be getting the choice now.

In any case, it _had_ been interesting to learn that apparently her father’s seemingly endless fuse did have a limit. And it was rather cathartic to watch her Papa push his friend’s face into the plate of beans once he’d had enough of the teasing. 

Honestly, if this was the type of amusement they’d get from letting the interloper into their home for as long as it took him to teach her to not permanently scar her family members - _no don’t think like that_ \- she wouldn’t mind him sticking around for a bit.

And despite her loathing of an unknown individual getting to poke around in her home, she really had become desperate over her lack of control over the flames.

She missed her Mama’s hands running through her hair. Her Papa’s hand resting at the nape of her neck when they walked places together. Holding onto her siblings hands whenever they crossed the street.

She would gladly let her new _t_ _ío_ take over her room if that meant he’d get her to stop burning the things she loved.

* * *

“Wait, why Sun flames? I thought you and Mama had said I had the Storm ones.”

_Tío_ Rafael and her were sitting in the backyard while he gave her a run down on freaking _Dying Will Flames of the Sky._

Between Maite’s hair color and now this, María was starting to realize she couldn’t deny she really was living in the _Katekyo Hitman Reborn_ world she’d read about in her past life. Everything _tío_ had said matched up to what she remembered from the series, and it seemed like she herself had the freaking magic fire to boot.

Darn. Just when in the timeline was she, anyways? She remembered the manga and anime had been released around the early two thousands period, but for all she knew the series’ timeline was already over and done with.

“Well, that’s the fun part _cari_ _ño_. If I’m right, then you have a secondary flame type! Just like me!” squealed the grown man. María was starting to get used to the man’s effeminate nature, but 8 years of her father’s classically masculine personality left her downright off kilter in the face of the Argentinian’s flamboyance. Her _tío_ continued.

“You see, I have a primary Mist flame,” her _tío_ raised a single digit in his left hand, which promptly lit up in a wispy indigo flame, “but my secondary type is Lightning,” with a snap of his fingers, his right hand sparked with green. “Now, my Mist flame is considerably stronger than my Lightning – hence it being my primary- but I can utilize both types to a certain degree. That’s what determines an individual’s flame types, by the way.” María raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Wait, so you could awaken another flame type if you wanted?” That had not been the case in the series María remembered. Was her knowledge incorrect?

“You misunderstand. Uh- lets see, how do I explain this?” _Tío_ Rafael pondered as he readjusted his sunglasses on top of his head, “Okay, you’re eight, so you probably don’t understand genetics, but basically depending on your genes, you can _potentially_ awaken specific flame types under special circumstances.

“For example, my genes had enough potential to let me awaken my Mist _and_ Lightning flames, but as far as I know I don’t have enough potential for, lets say, Sky flames. My genes just don’t have enough -if any- Sky flame potential.  Therefore, I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever awakening those.” Taking a sip of the beer Mama had brought him earlier, he continued. “But hypothetically, if I _did_ have the potential for, oh I don’t know, Sun flames, if I got into the type of situation that would awaken that type of flame, or I underwent training and flame habituation I could potentially awaken that type as well. But only if my genes had the potential, which I’m pretty sure they don’t.” He grinned, “ _You,_ on the other hand, do have the that potential, if your lack of bullet hole is anything to go by.” María’s hands went to her midriff.

“But I thought I made that up? Wouldn’t I have a scar and a bullet still inside if that’d really happened?” She tapped where she thought she remembered the blood pouring out from. It _had_ felt real, but once she’d woken up there had been no trace of it.

“That’s where the Sun flames come in. Like I said, only certain triggers can activate flames when one is not habituated early on. The assault itself probably was the trigger to your Storm flames, but being shot is a common way people in the industry awaken Sun type flames. And as for the bullet, I’m guessing it either went straight through you, or more likely seeing the lack of a bloody bullet at the scene, your storm flames ate through it.“ Although he kept his tone light, María saw her _tío_ ’s eyes regain that sharp look she’d witnessed during his introduction the day before. “That speaks of pretty intense storm flames, by the way.”

“… _Tío_ , you said something about habituation. What’s that?” That was also not something she remembered from the show. Maybe it just hadn’t mattered?

“Well, for most people, awakening flames involves a life or death situation. Being so desperate for _something_ to help them get through it that they break past their flames ‘sleep’ and make them useful.” He turned to look at the darkening evening sky. “But that’s not the _only_ way to get use of flames. Flame habituation is basically constant exposure to active flame users throughout early childhood and teens.” He looked back down at her, “You’re a pretty special case in that sense, _cari_ _ño_. Most people who aren’t habituated -and those are almost exclusively the children of strong flame users or have parents rich enough to hire flame actives to just hang out- they awaken their flames _much_ later than you did. In fact, it’s considered pretty young to do it in your late teens, never mind while your age is of single digits.” He chuckled, “I’m not sure if it was just a strong flame probability in your genes, or you were just that willful to live, but it is pretty scary how you woke two different types of flame up at this age, _tesoro_.”

_Oh, you don’t know the half of it._ María knew she would have felt ridiculously proud to be praised for her abilities had she not had her adult memories, but she understood the hidden warning in her _tío_ ’s words. She was a coveted anomaly. She would be a sought after resource.

She was in danger.

“…So could I turn off the flames? I don’t like having to throw away my sheets every night.” She knew there was a way to do it. The main character in the series had had that done to him if she remembered correctly.

Unexpectedly, her _tío_ scowled, “Oh María, trust me, there’s no way in hell you’d want your flames sealed.” María flinched at his words. She hadn’t actually heard the man curse before. His tone rang with the sound of disappointment and scorn.

Noticing he’d scared his pupil, Rafael wiped the scowl off his face and backtracked, “I’m sorry _mija_ , I didn’t mean to spook you, but I’ve seen what happens when people try to turn flames off and it’s not pretty.” Running his fingers through his long hair, he explained, “While grown people can seal their flames for a little while, usually due to restraining reasons, nobody should seal their flames for extended periods of time. It’s terrible for the person and their flames.” Her _tío_ ’s eyes gained a slightly glazed over look. “I knew of a couple of cases of people whose flames were sealed early on in their lives and never released. I don’t think any of them made it to thirty.” Her eyes widened. Inside her hoodies’ pockets, María’s hands clenched. She hadn’t known that. Just how long had the main character in the show had the seal on his flames?

Taking a long sip of his beer, _tío_ Rafael continued, “This is actually not commonly known in the crime world. Most people wouldn’t even bother sealing flames for long periods of time because they’re so useful. Better to train flame actives than to waste money and resources. I only learned this while I was part of a rising flame using _famiglia_ in Italia and due to my own experiences working with other flame active people. The few that do know don’t make it common knowledge. Better to let enemies stab themselves in the foot by sealing flames than to give them the information.”

María swallowed. She didn’t like the sound of that. It seemed like despite her _tío_ ’s knowledge on the subject, flames really were a special bit of knowledge even in the mafia. She supposed she really should be thankful her Papa had such close connection with somebody who could lead her in the right direction in regards to her flames.

Leaning back and taking another long swing of his beer, _tío_ Rafael took another look at the still unsettled girl and sighted, “we just got way off the rail with this conversation huh? Whatever, your parents can afford one more set of sheets. We’ll cover flame use and control tomorrow. But for now,” with the same hand holding the beer he gestured to the entire backyard surrounding them, “You’re gonna run fifty laps without stopping for a break before we head inside for dinner.” María sputtered.

“Wait what?!” Why did she have to run?? María hadn’t signed up for a personal trainer! This had nothing to do with flames!

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll tell your mom to double your portion at dinner. But for now,” his left hand sparked green, “start running.”

María yelped and jumped back at the strong shock. “Hey! That’s not fair!”

Completely unbothered, Rafael stood up and began walking towards her, “How sad! Don’t care.”

María ran.

* * *

In the end, María had ran the full 50 laps and some change to spare. She hadn’t been counting and had only realized this once her newly christened uncle figure had made an offhand comment about how she was almost to her seventieth lap.

All in all, María had been both dizzy and beyond annoyed at Rafael by the time they came inside for dinner. She wasn’t as tired from the running as she thought she’d be, but she was still sore and sweaty. The smell of her mother’s cooking as they stepped back into the house served only as a small comfort in the face of all the exercise she’d had to unexpectedly do.

Despite her own feelings, it looked like Rafael was as cheery as ever.

“Laura! Can you add enough for an extra serving for tonight? Thank you!” Her mother didn’t even look annoyed by the Argentinian’s request. Seriously, since when did Mama let strangers conduct themselves this freely in her own home? The unfairness of it all was getting to María. She tugged on the man’s trouser leg.

“Why? Did you invite somebody over?” Her _tío_ only shook his head.

“Nah, nothing like that. From now on, you need to eat about the same amount of food as Ramiro though. Did you know, us flame actives _burn_ through calories like they’re going out of style?” Taking a seat, the brunette left María to stare at him with a flabbergasted face. Even her Mama’s face, stoic as it was, held a hint of confusion.

María was begrudgingly impressed by her _tío_ ’s ability to baffle her mother. She considered the older woman to be the most unflappable individual she’d met in either one of her lives. The woman took the opportunity to ask their guest from her place in the middle of the kitchen.

“…Okay. Does that mean you’ll need more food then?”

Rafael waved Mama off, “Nah, not necessary. While I do eat more than average, I don’t even outpace Ramiro’s stomach. Mists are typically not as bad as Storms or Suns. Your daughter, however, is both. Be prepared for an impressive food budget by the time she hits puberty.”

María could feel her mother’s dubiousness at the man’s statement. María had seemingly inherited her mother’s more willowy frame. Both of the Rodriguez daughters had, in fact. Santiago leaned more towards their fathers stockier and stouter physique, but his face sported the same high cheekbones and pointy chin that both his sisters and their mother had. Nevertheless, a girl of María’s stature and body was not exactly the poster child for large appetites. Sensing the mother and daughter’s dubiousness, her _tío_ smirked not unkindly.

“Ah, Laura, _Tesoro_. You two underestimate the effect flames have on the body. Trust me, if you keep eating the portion sizes recommended for your age, little María, you’ll starve. By the time you’re fully grown you really should never eat less than three servings per meal. Any less and you’d be at serious risk of running a caloric deficiency. Suns really are barrels with no bottoms.”

María could at least appreciate the irony of her apparent ability of eating without worrying about overindulging when her first life had been a constant struggle of counting calories. She was sure she’d be able to appreciate her metabolism in this second go at life.

Once the rest of the family had joined them at the table (and Papa had extracted a promise from _tío_ to not share anymore stories about their jobs for the rest of the night,) María discovered that the little exercise had helped her build quite an appetite.

“…You know that’s your third plate right?” Maite’s tone dripped with disdain. Despite knowing better, María felt her face flush.

“I’m hungry. And _tío_ Rafael said flame users eat more.” María winced at how much like an excuse that sounded. She knew she shouldn’t give Maite openings like that, but the dig at her weight had sparked a wave of embarrassment. She moved to offer her father the food on her plate when a hand pinned her plate down in front of her.

“Now, none of that. Didn’t I just say what would happen if you didn’t eat enough from now on? What, were you just not listening? I’m hurt, _cariño_ ,“ Her _tío_ ’s tone dripped with kind admonishment. “Come on now, I want to see you finish everything in this plate, alright? You’re gonna need it for tomorrow.” María felt herself snap out of her mental spiral at the soft threat. She mumbled out her response as she dug into her plate.

“Whatever.”

* * *

As it turned out, getting a good bit of exercise and a nice meal to tucker her out before going to bed was all she’d needed to not set her sheets on fire during the night. Once she’d woken up, María had meticulously combed through her bed spread looking for burnt edges or ashy residues, but the sheets had come up clean.

Seeing her _tío_ ’s self-satisfied smirk at hers and the rest of the family’s surprise at the morning’s lack of burnt bedding let her know that he’d known exactly what he was doing.

Once her parents had left to run errands in the city and her siblings were on their way to the daycare, (María herself had not gone back to school since the incident) María and Rafael headed into a nearby warehouse a few minutes from her neighborhood.

“ _Tío_ , what are we doing here?” She’d still been hesitant over her control over her flames despite the success that morning, but her _tío_ had insisted she held his hand as they made the trek. She’d never come to this area beyond driving through it to get somewhere else. It was largely abandoned and had been since the economic crisis that had happened before her birth.

María herself had only heard about it in off-hand comments from the news and adults in her neighborhood, but her future memories of studying the county told her that in the eighties Mexico had fallen into a particularly terrible recession. All in all, par for the course in economic history of Latin America. Nevertheless, it fucked the Mexican peso and triggered a chain of devaluations in currencies across Latin America. Seems like not even the infamous _maquiladoras_ , the cheap labor factories, on the U.S.-Mexico border had survived the culling. The district seemed more like a desert town than the source of much of the employment in Juarez in the decades past and -if history went on like it had in her first life- decades future.

Now that she thought about it, she had the equivalent of _insider knowledge_ for the general Latin American economic future for the next twenty-something years or so. _Holy shit._ She could make the killing investing that Nicole used to fantasize about while she studied the region’s economy while in college. She even knew which companies would make it big by the time the 2000’s rolled around.

Just as she was getting around to imagining her future investment portfolio in her head, her _tío_ answered her question, “Turns out your mom still has a few of the deeds to old _Paso Norte_ money laundering schemes from back in the day which the _Chihuahua_ missed. She said we could train far away from any civilians in any of her family’s old properties that hadn’t been snatched.”

_What?_

“ _Tío_ , what are you talking about?”

_Tío_ Rafael stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her in bewilderment. Getting a clear look at the confusion displayed on her face, his eyes turned comically big.

“…Hold on, did they not-?! Did Laura and Ramiro not tell you about the Paso Norte??!” María was starting to feel like she’d been played, but not sure how yet.

“No? What’s that?” Her _tío_ face-palmed and sighted.

“Seems I’m gonna have to force your parents’ hands and make them have some important family conversations before we touch on criminal history, that’s all.  I don’t care if they wanted to keep you kids on the clear, there’s no way in hell you’re avoiding criminal ties now that you’ve become flame active.” He rubbed the bridge and dragged the palm of his hand down until it covered his face. _"Miro, bastardo che non sei altro, giuro che se non amassi te e la tua famiglia così tanto, ti avrei già strangolato con le tue stesse stringe!"_ She wasn’t sure, but she thought that may have been Italian.

 “For now though, all that doesn’t matter. We’re here for you to set everything on fire. So come on, get to it.” María blinked.

“What?” Her uncle picked up a rotting piece of wood from the ground and threw it at her. María dogged it and saw it fly past her head.

“No. You’re supposed to catch it. Now go pick it up.” María gingerly picked up the smelly piece of wood. “Great, now come on, set it on fire.” María looked down at the plank, and then back up at her teacher.

“I… don’t know how?” Her voice was painfully filled with uncertainty. She was telling the truth. So far, all of her flame uses since the shooting had been accidental. Not once had she tried to burn any of the things she’d set on fire.

“Don’t care. You can clearly use flames already, _cariño_. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how to do it consciously. Honestly, you’re doing this backwards. Most people need to get familiar with their flames before getting the hang of them to the degree where use is unconscious.” Grabbing his own piece of rotting wood, he held it out towards her.

“Now, our flames are directly attached to our wills and emotions, therefore, if you want to light them up you need to either feel an extreme amount of emotion or have a strong resolution to see whatever it is, burn. These methods, of course, are not mutually exclusive, but you should try to start out with one at a time and the other one should follow along.” His board took that opportunity to light up in indigo flames. María noticed that although the fire did burn _on_ the plank, it wasn’t sending up smoke.

“Are you actually burning anything?” Her uncle figure smiled appreciatively at her comment.

“Good eye. No, I’m not actually burning the board. Although the flame is real.” Using his free hand, he tugged at his jacket’s sleeve, also setting it on fire. Once again, although the fire burned _on_ the jacket, she could still see the sleeve was perfectly fine underneath the flickering indigo. “While flames take their name and shape from actual fire, they only resemble it. Depending on the type, Dying Will Flames have different properties than real fire. They’re versatile enough that almost all flames can copy a real fire if backed by enough will of an experienced user, but otherwise they will tend to do their own thing.

“Mist flames are one of the types least like real fire. They tend to stick to things for longer periods than other flames, which is great for illusions, but they don’t have much towards destructive capabilities. In fact, if I don’t focus on strengthening them, you can probably go ahead and pass your hand through them. They’re barely below room temperature.” His plank took the opportunity to change from burning with indigo fire to bristling with green sparks, “Lightning obviously behaves much more like real lightning than real fire. It’s a little harder for Lightning flames to actually shock people, though. Much easier to have them harden things,” he launched the molding plank towards the warehouse’s wall. With one strong thunk, the board embedded itself in the aluminum of the warehouse’s walls.

Then he shook out his hand and pulled on the fingers with the other, “To be honest, I’m not as comfortable with my secondary as I should be, María. If I had the same ability with my Lightning as with my Mist I could have hardened my hand as well as the board and kept from hurting myself when I threw it, but I’ve slacked off in recent times.” Shaking his hand one last time, he turned back towards her, “Thankfully for you, however, I already have a talent with my Mist,” he summoned a dandelion from thin air into his hand’s grip, “and I also met a ton of flame users while working abroad,” the dandelion burst into the same red flames that haunted María’s dreams. She flinched. Seeing this, Rafael frowned.

“No, you cannot be afraid of your flames María. They are as much a part of you now as your blood or your limbs. In fact, they physically will never hurt you as long as you can control them.” Seeing the dubious look María no doubt sported, he nodded. “It’s the truth. After all, sheets and your brother aside, didn’t you ever wonder why your clothing was never burned when you used your flames?” María hesitated. She had admittedly wondered but she’d figured it was only because she burned with her hands exclusively, and she just wasn’t a big glove wearer.

“Your brain unconsciously registers your clothing as part of your person. Unless you lost part of your control over them, your flames will always act docile towards the things you consider yours. Santiago’s accident occurred because you were disoriented and didn’t recognize him at first. Once you finally registered it was him, your flames cut off. Your sheets and furniture are being burned because you’re stuck thinking about the assault, most likely. Even if you don’t do it on purpose, your subconscious is trying to defend itself from the men you already killed.” María swallowed. Rafael’s dandelion had slowly but surely burned down under the mist illusion of storm flames as he spoke. She wasn’t sure where to go from here.

“Then how do I go about burning the plank, _tío_?” If she didn’t have a choice, María guessed she could at least give it her all. Go Big or Go Home. 

“Well, that’s for you to figure out, cariño.”

María sighted. Guessed there was no easy way out of this.

She rolled up her sweater sleeves and got to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (3/3/2019) Fixed Italian translation with help from Artemis926, an ACTUAL Italian speaker.
> 
> Translations:  
> Tío - Spanish for Uncle  
> Cariño - Spanish for Dear  
> Tesoro - Spanish for Treasure  
> Peso - Mexican currency  
> Maquiladoras - Factories in Latin America known for providing cheap labor, typically employing women.  
> "'Miro, bastardo che non sei altro, giuro che se non amassi te e la tua famiglia così tanto, ti avrei già strangolato con le tue stesse stringe!" - Italian for "'miro, I love you and your family, but if I didn't I would have already strangled you with your own shoelaces, you stupid bastard."


	4. Chapter 4

Rafael watched as María started on her fifteenth lap around the warehouse’s limits. The girl had done a remarkable job trying to give the training her best effort, but little progress had been made.

They were a month into her training, and although she’d made significant improvements on her athleticism, the girl had had no luck with awakening her flames.

Rafael could see her shame and disappointment every time they arrived back at the house after a day of training and her family asked her about her progress. He knew they meant well, but María simply ended up stressing herself out and hindering her own progress in the face of her lack of results.

He personally thought that although unusually slow in her flame training, María was doing okay. His _sobrina_ , however, was too demanding of herself.

Still, it was baffling to the _mafioso_ how a person who’d managed to use their flames repeatedly and without meaning to could not get them to come out on purpose. It went against so many of the things he knew about flames from his time in Italia. Honestly, he should have expected Ramiro’s kids to be as much of a headache as their progenitor had been back in the day.

Too bad for the Argentinian man the children were _adorable_. He’d practically fallen in love at first sight when he’d first heard them call him tío.

To most it wouldn’t have meant much, even less in this part of the world, but Rafael knew how hesitant his friend had been about allowing outsiders a look into his family.

To be immediately granted the title of uncle was practically a vote of confidence, a seal of approval, and the biggest compliment Ramiro could have given him all wrapped up into a form of address that would remind both Rafael and the family that he was trustworthy.

If Rafael hadn’t already known that Ramiro was not one for underhanded tactics such as this, he would have assumed the man was trying to guilt-trip him into taking responsibility for the children. Although, perhaps it just hadn’t been Ramiro masterminding the power play.

Rafael took a second to consider the lovely Laura. As he’d come to learn, his friend’s wife was a truly terrifying woman. Despite her dormant inner flames having that distinct Storm taste, she seemed to have as much innate disposition for subterfuge as some of the best Mists he knew, himself included.

Her and Ramiro’s children’s potentials, however, now _they_ had truly thrown him for a loop.

María’s Storm primary was particularly strong, but her Sun secondary had just been a hunch until he’d gotten to meet the girl in person and had tasted it in her flames. That distinct honeyed tone mixing mellowly with the spicy kick of her Storm. He supposed Laura and Ramiro both must have had a fair bit of Sun ancestry for it to show up in their eldest. The girl’s flames seemed to practically _leak_ from her person in a way that spoke of an unusually potent will, especially for her age.

Her younger siblings, however, had been an even bigger surprise.

Quiet little Santiago had the tell-tale Lightning spirit flavor, even though he wasn’t active yet. (And with both him and María living under the same roof, it was really just a matter of time.) Rafael had always thought Lightning could have been Ramiro’s secondary given his straight-forward nature. To see it manifest in his son left him feeling smug as all hell, to say the least.

And just like his sister, his potential was tinged with something else that spoke of a decent secondary potential, although not even Rafael could fathom just what that minty aftertaste was. All in all, another exceptionally gifted child, if clearly not as potent as his big sister.

However, neither of the elder kids had been as unexpected as young Maite.

When he’d first laid eyes on the trio, and once he managed to gaze past the sheer density of the eldest’s fire, he’d been astonished to feel the odd flame combination in the youngest sibling. With flames that reminded him of the pomegranate wine he’d tried while passing through Israel, Maite’s almost perfectly balanced Storm and Mist potential flames had thrown him for a loop.

He couldn’t distinguish a primary from a secondary in the girl.

At first, he’d assumed the lack of a dominance could have simply been a matter of lack of potential in the silver-haired girl, but after a month of second-hand habituation from María and himself, he could practically feel her own fire trying to make the leap to manifestation.

It seemed that although nowhere nearly as potent as her elder siblings’ fire, she could at least taunt an unusually balanced flame ratio. And the fact that these were opposing functioning flames was not lost on him.

He was terribly curious over how a Storm’s innate dominance and a Mist’s inherent talent for misdirection would express themselves in the girl. But at the moment, his priority was Ramiro’s other daughter.

He continued to watch as said girl began another lap.

After a month with María, he’d already become perfectly aware of her single-minded stubbornness and foolish tenacity. If she said she’d run 20 full laps without taking a break, she really would unless she collapsed first.

So, even though he could hear the wheezy breaths all the way from the warehouse entrance, he already knew not to ask her to scale back after he’d already given her a goal to reach. He’d learned his lesson the first time.

_-‘W- what do you mean that’s enough? I ha- haven’t finished all the laps yet!’_

_‘Nevermind that, cariño. You look like you’re about to pass out. It’s alright if you can’t finish the full set, that’s enough for today.’_

_‘No! I’m not done! I said I’d do it, damnit!’-_

He personally did not get just whom she was trying to impress. He himself had made it perfectly clear that the exercise part of their training was mostly to help her manage her Sun-boosted energy. Nevertheless, she had still finished the laps that time.

And he’d ended up having to carry her sleeping form home.

But almost as annoying as the stubbornness, she also had the inclination for independence of a freaking _Cloud._

She seemed alright with Ramiro and Laura’s offhanded approach to parenting, and she seemed equal parts older sister and third parent to the twins. But whenever they went out to train and she needed to do something new, she insisted on doing it by herself, with no help from him.

To her credit, she _had_ been successful in most of the things she’d set out to do. But a few twisted ankles and nasty falls had occurred when she’d told him that she could _definitely_ do some of the easier-looking hand-to-hand maneuvers that he’d demonstrated during combat practice, when in fact, she couldn’t.

Rafael personally preferred to let her try to do whatever she set her mind to, even if he knew she really, _really_ couldn’t. They were teachable moments. If she couldn’t learn to ask for help, especially in the face of impossible odds, she really would not last long in their line of work.

And there really was no way out of organized crime now that she’d awakened flames. It was practically impossible to avoid the flame-active poaching that happened to people like them. María would need a strong network to avoid getting forced into an organization due to her abilities.

Hell, once they were all finally active, none of the kids should even step a foot in Europe before getting the backing of some sort of organization to keep them safe. Otherwise, they honestly were not likely to make it through one hour of interaction with other criminals without coming under the scrutiny of whatever local syndicate or family controlled the area.

At least the Americas were still catching up to Flame users in Europe. The New World was still learning about the culture of flame users and so people in this region didn’t get _instantly_ dragged straight into their local organized crime. It was just under the Old World model that civilians who awoke flames were immediately acquired through the flame -to-crime pipeline.

Nevertheless, Rafael did remember hearing that the Vindice had recently started expanding their jurisdiction into other parts of the world. With the increase in organized flame crime outside of Europe and mainland Asia, he supposed those freaks were eager to get their grubby hands on other parts of the flame world.

Guess that meant he’d have to have _that_ conversation not just with María, but with the whole family. Couldn’t have them getting arrested due to a lack of knowledge on Flame crime. After all, that was not a valid reason in the beady eyes of those creeps to not follow the law.

Lovely.

He was still busy trying to convince Laura to tell the kids the story of the Paso Norte, anyways. They both knew it would have to happen eventually, but she was still putting it off.

At least she hadn’t tried giving him excuses, but Rafael really needed her to get over the inner turmoil if he wanted to start teaching María cartel history. Couldn’t have her learn about other cartels before even knowing about her own.

After all, if he’d learnt one thing from the Ricci, it was the importance of personal history. He wouldn’t forsake any of the kid’s identities by having them believe they were just the children of common criminals.

Pushing forward from the wall he’d been leaning against, Rafael started walking to his student who was almost done with her laps.

She was barely standing. Probably couldn’t even think straight at the moment.

Oh well. Guess one more teachable moment wouldn’t hurt her any more than she already was.

And who knows? Perhaps not thinking would help her with the flame training.

 

* * *

 

María barely registered the moldy plank her tío put on her hand as she took a seat on the ground to catch her breath. She may have gotten a significant stamina boost from her sunny flames, but she was still human, and flame cheats or not, could still die of a heart attack.

Her heart was still hammering on from inside her ribcage, so she gingerly laid back on the cracked pavement. Her lungs were little more than abused windpipes and her body’s own temperature felt like a just-lit furnace.

She really, _definitely_ shouldn’t have said that she’d do the whole twenty laps this time. She’d barely just gotten to eighteen a couple days before and doing just that was already a full workout.

However, she’d been reckless and stubborn - _again_ -, and there was just a nice thing about the number twenty.

_Ugghhhh, I feel like a stove._ Carefully, she stretched her limbs and neck out further so the extremities could get more of the nice coolness of the asphalt. _Ahhhhhhhh~! That feels much better._ Tío Rafael gave out a sputtered gasp.

It took María a few seconds to realize what he’d been spooked by.

Still loosely clasped by her hand, the moldy board was slowly but surely being turned to an opaque cloud of ash by a soft ember of cherry-red fire. It took the criminal in training a couple more seconds of seeing the flame almost lapping up her skin before she dropped it in the dirt with a yelp. The board, now somehow catching on fire completely, spread the red flame into the concrete and soil.

Before she could react, however, her tío was on top of the fire, smothering it with his own wave of indigo flames which dropped on the red safety hazard like a bag of sand. Once the indigo and cherry colored flames were completely gone, the teacher and student looked at each other, speechless.

_…I’m going to jump off the roof and nobody can stop me._ María was done. Finished. _Finito_. No more flame training, thank you very much!

Seriously??!? She spent a month trying to spark the stupid planks of smelly scrap on fire only to finally do it but on accident?? It was official, flame training was over! She’d just have to learn to live with randomly setting fire to things.

Her uncle didn’t seem to share her pessimisms, however. “Tesoro, you did it! You finally set fire to the plank!” the man exclaimed as he helped her get back on her wobbly feet. María scowled and pulled away.

“But it was an accident! It doesn’t count if I didn’t know what I was doing! I’m still stuck, tio.” She really just felt like going home and finding a spot to curl up in and cry. She’d been working _so hard_ to get the fire under control, and this felt more like salt on the wound than a semblance of progress.

“Hey, that’s the last thing I want to hear coming from you! I _can_ and _will_ teach you flame control if it’s the last thing I do, but you’re the only one who can put in the real resolve, _cariño_.”

María clenched her jaw and lowered her eyes in guilt. She knew her tío was doing everything right, but she was starting to think that there really was no way she was gonna get to a point where her flames listened to her. She felt like she had tried _everything_ and still nothing worked. 

Her tío didn’t seem deterred in the slightest, however. “Hey! None of that, now!... Okay, how about this? Tell me what you felt when you lit the plank and we can go from there.” His tone sounded completely sincere and confident.

María didn’t understand how he could just trust that she’d be able to get it. It seemed like she was only good at setting accidental fires.

Nevertheless, he was her tío, and she knew she had to trust him. “I didn’t feel anything. I was just tired and thinking about how my chest hurt. I didn’t even realize you’d handed me the wood until I hear you gasp.”

Her tío gave her a serious look over. He looked deep in thought.

The girl tried her best not to fidget in self-consciousness. She didn’t want to disappoint him again, but she also knew that to not try would be equally if not just as bad as throwing the towel. She was really stuck between a rock and a hard place, huh?

After a long pause, he gave a sharp turn and began walking towards the property’s gates. Without turning back to look at her, he clapped twice and called out, “chop chop María! We’re going home early today! Hurry up now!”

And really, did she have any other choice but to trot along behind him?

“… Tio, what are we doing at home then?” She was almost scared to ask. Almost.

Her tío didn’t spare her a glance as he kept his eyes on the path in front of them. “Tell me María, what do you know about meditation?”

 

* * *

 

From the kitchen window overlooking the yard, Laura watched as Rafael and her daughter sat in the grass and apparently tried to teach the girl how to meditate.

They’d arrived back from the warehouses much earlier than they ever had before, and with a quick hello, had gone straight into the backyard.

But judging from María’s frustrated scowl, they pair weren’t going to be getting much out of today’s practice besides introducing her daughter to the concept.

Honestly, that girl…

Nevertheless, Laura knew it wasn’t her job to worry about her daughter’s progress in her training. That was the role of the _mafioso_ sun tanning to the left of her daughter; Rafael Ricci Becker.

When her husband had first brought up asking his old partner for help with María’s problem, Laura had been skeptic. She may have trusted Ramiro’s judgement, but the two men hadn’t seen each other in over a decade. (And Laura loved and trusted Ramiro, she truly did, but he was a tad too straightforward a man for her paranoia.)

But they were desperate, so she’d conceded to his suggestion without much fuzz.

The mother of three had allowed the man into her home and family and had granted him access to the children despite neither Laura nor Ramiro having done that with anybody else before. They’d welcomed him with open arms and told the kids to call him tío Rafael. Told them he was trustworthy.

Her husband had been over the moon all month long over having his best friend back, their friendship seemingly picking up right where it left off. And María either was wrapped around the Argentinian’s finger, or the mafioso himself was wrapped around hers. The jury was still out on that one for Laura.

But the former daughter of the Paso Norte _Capo_ hadn’t survived to her thirties by just letting other people make decisions for her.

She’d given the man the keys to one of the old warehouses she still owned the deeds for, but she hadn’t told him she owned the deed to the whole block. So while the man had set up shop in there to train María, Laura had already set herself up on an adjacent warehouse, monitoring their training rather than doing the weekly shopping.

Luckily for all of them, the teacher had been trustworthy. From what she’d observed over the month, Laura could tell that he’d had her daughter get started on basic stamina and agility training, paired with some basic self-defense, and what she supposed was flame training in the in between while María cooled down.

None of her background checks had brought anything incriminating either besides the things she’d already known from Ramiro and some truly depressing happenings in Italy. It seemed like the _sicario_ turned _mafioso_ had been wandering and doing odd independent jobs for a while before Ramiro had called and asked for a favor.

So Laura -much to her paranoia’s dismay and her husband’s pleasure- had conceded to the man’s trustworthiness.

It had helped that the guy was outrageously charming and witty when he wanted to be, and his skills in the kitchen had served as a lubricant for socialization with the former cartel princess.

But as lovely as those talks had been, one of them had put her in her current internal dilemma.

_She needed to tell the kids about the family._

Laura winced and finished drying the dishes. She’d known that this conversation would have to happen someday, but she still couldn’t bring herself to start it. Didn’t know _how._

It had been almost a decade and a half since her family had been cut down, and if she was honest with herself, she’d left sleeping dogs lie since. Laura had long since distanced herself from the memories of that first part of her life, even though they were cherished and thought of fondly. It was just that after all these year, she didn’t know how to start dealing with it once and for all.

Could anybody blame her? She’d gone from being the spoiled youngest daughter of one of the most long standing criminal families in Mexico, to a homeless orphan practically overnight. She hadn’t had the time to mourn or think. She’d just reacted. Her priorities had been survival , not dealing with the aftermath of the assassination of the rest of her family.

How was she supposed to find the time to get a roof over her head AND handle the deaths of her parents and brothers? Of the end of her entire way of life?

No. Laura was proud of what she’d accomplished despite her situation. She’d gotten back up on her own two feet and had eventually gotten to where she was today. And now, she couldn’t imagine life without Ramiro and their children.

But she digressed. She now needed to tell her children about their family sooner rather than later. María needed her to, otherwise Rafael refused to get her started on what he called “ _Cartel History”_ , something she’d need in order to navigate her way through their world. And Rafael had been clear about her learning her own family’s history before anything else.

Laura wished she could truthfully say she disagreed with his logic.

She may have strangled her former self in order to survive once she’d been on her own, but she’d _never_ forgotten what her father had taught her.

She was a daughter of the _Paso Norte._ She ascended from the leaders and the heroes of her land. They stood in front of the power and _choked it_ for not bowing down to them. She was the daughter of the enlightened and the blessed, and she had the heavens smiling down upon her, _always._

And so were her children.

They would be taught their own history, or they would be taught _nothing._

Now, if she could only fucking figure out how to do it.

 

* * *

 

Still mostly asleep, Maite softly padded her way out of her and her siblings’ shared room and made her way to the kitchen.

As had become the standard since tío Rafael had come to live with them, her older sister had already left for the day with their new uncle, even though it was a Sunday. Meanwhile, Santiago slept through the morning, and would continue to do so until either Mama or Papa forcibly dragged him out of bed.

On weekends like this, Maite usually woke up just early enough to eat breakfast with Mama and Papa. Papa seated on his spot in the kitchen nook, a cup of tea still steaming by his plate, while Mama would be standing by the counter over her tiny clay pot brewing her _café de olla_.

However, as Maite entered the kitchen that morning, that was not what she found.

The silver girl frowned. Mama was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Papa was in her usual spot looking down at the clay pot, glaring at it like it had done him some terrible wrong. His own cup of tea lay to a side, no longer hot from the looks of it.

Maite hesitantly took a seat. “Good morning, Papa. Where’s Mama?” Her father didn’t turn away from the pot.

“Good morning, _corazón._ Mama went to bed late yesterday, so I said I’d help her with breakfast today. She’s just getting ready right now,” answered her father. Taking a sip of his own lukewarm cup and grimacing, he turned from the steaming stove and looked back at Maite with an indulgent smile. “Now, what do _you_ want to eat this morning, _cariño_?”

Suitably distracted from her line of questioning by the chance to swindle some _pan dulce_ from her father for breakfast, the littlest Rodriguez dropped her line of questioning.

Only later, as if summoned by the smell of cinnamon from the cup her Papa had finally set down on the table with a small self-satisfied smirk, did her Mama finally make an appearance.

Her mother was dressed with one of the nice skirts she usually only wore on special occasions. If Maite didn’t know any better, she would have thought she was going to the bank. However, that wasn’t possible. The bank didn’t open on Sundays.

Just where was Mama going?

The woman in question took a sip of the coffee and sighted in pleasure, “Thank you. I needed that.” Ramiro didn’t answer, but Maite thought he looked rather pleased with himself.

Swallowing the mouth full of bread, Maite asked her mother the question on her mind, “Mama, why are you dressed nice? Are you going somewhere special?” Maite’s Mama looked slightly surprised by the question. The woman took another sip of her coffee before she answered her daughter.

“Mama’s going to a special place, yes. I haven’t gone in a long time, though. Say, would you like to come with me?” Maite frowned. If this place was anything like the bank, she didn’t think she’d like going very much. She voiced her concern to her mother.

Laura smiled knowingly. “Oh, I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think you’d get bored. How about this? If you don’t like it, we can leave as soon as it’s done. And if you like it, I’ll take you with me next week.”

Maite pondered over the offer for a second. She wasn’t doing anything fun today. And if it turned out to be any good, she could later brag to Santiago about how she’d gone out alone with their Mama and he hadn’t. María was already getting to hang out with their _tío_ , alone, every day. Maite deserved to have one of the adults in the house pay their attention to her as well.

Nodding, Maite answered her mother, “Okay Mama, I’ll come with you. So where are we going?”

“You know that really tall red building with the crosses on the roof we pass by sometimes?” Maite nodded yes. “It’s called a church. We’re going to attend something called Mass there.”

 

* * *

 

Maite knew she’d passed by this place multiple times before, but she’d never noticed how weird the building was.

The church was a dusty red color with white details on the windows and doors. It stood elevated from the street level with a set of steps leading from the sidewalk up to the open entrance. Nicely dressed people stood on the steps and chatted with one another. Amongst them, a few people wore weird looking robes Maite thought must be real uncomfortable considering the dry summer heat that suffocated the city around this time of year.

Maite and Mama stood just outside the crowd’s edge. Outsiders looking in at the mass of families slowly convening before making their way inside the building. Maite didn’t know what they were waiting for, but her Mama’s tight hold on her hand kept her from asking.

The silver haired girl looked down at the outfit her mother had shoved her into before they left the house. It was ugly and uncomfortable. One of her sister’s old sweaters and an old looking skirt she’d never seen before paired with her newly polished school uniform shoes.

But Maite didn’t own anything really formal besides her school uniform, so her mother had put the outfit together and then made a promise to get her a better outfit for church if she ever wanted to come back with her.  

After a few minutes of quietly standing in the periphery of the crowd, one of the men wearing the robes, this one much younger than the rest, approached the mother and daughter pair. “Good morning daughters, I don’t think we’ve met yet. My name is Father Matias, it is a pleasure to meet you.” The so-called _Father_ Matias had a warm smile and a very nice voice. He reminded Maite of one of the nicer strays that lived in the neighborhood.

Her mother nodded her head in way of a greeting and answered, “Good morning to you as well, Father. My name is Laura Velasquez and this is my daughter Maite.” Father Matias’ face didn’t change, but the look in his eyes was different. Maite thought it made him look uglier. “I was wondering if you could tell me if Father Julio is still around? You see, my family used to be part of this parish a long time ago, and we were very close. I’m in need of his services.”

In a much more neutral tone of voice, the man answered, “Ah, of course.  If you’ll come with me I’ll take you to him. He should be inside setting up for Mass.”

He led them through the crowd of people standing by the doors and into the church. Maite noted how much quieter it was inside the building. People here were mostly just sitting quietly in the long wood benches that spanned the entire floor. Some people were kneeling before a weird box at the front of the room, while others passing by the doors were dipping their hands into a small fountain. Maite would have asked about it, but she wouldn’t dare disturb the silence inside the place. It felt very serious.

The father led them to a table in the front of the building. There was an old man with the same outfit Father Matias was wearing paging through a very big book. He had deep laugh lines and dimples.

On the contrary of Father Matias, this man looked to be far older than any of the other men in robes standing outside.

As they got closer to him, he looked up from his reading with a serene yet happy smile.

Father Matias began, “Father, this child wishes to speak to you. She says she’s an old member of this parish-“ But before he could finish, the old man interrupted him.

“Little Laurita Velasquez is it really you?!” Leaning on the table he quickly descended towards the three of them from his spot behind the table. He paid no mind to the other man and instead softly cradled Maite’s mother’s face. He seemed in awe of her presence, as if the woman were a mirage.

With a fond but sad smile, Mama placed her hands over his and answered, “Hello Father. It’s been too long.”

“Oh! Laurita I can’t believe it!” With a surprising strength for a man his age, the priest opened his arms and embraced Maite’s mother almost pulling her off the ground. “I prayed for your well being for such a long time, but I never dreamed of seeing you again. You have no idea how delighted I am to see you, child.” Mama more gently embraced the man back, but pulled away before speaking to him.

“Oh Father, I never meant to stray for so long, but I am back to face the lord once more.” Taking notice of the people in the church subtly listening in, she continued in a voice closer to a whisper, “I’d love to catch up with you after Mass, but right now I’m in need of the sacrament of reconciliation, Father.” The old man nodded and with a hand on her mother’s shoulder, turned towards an empty alcove in a corner of the church.

“Of course, of course.” He turned his head and looked at the other priest who’d stood back quietly this entire time. “Matias, please look after Laurita’s young daughter for a minute, will you?” The younger man, who’d lost his own serenity in the face of his fellow priest’s exuberance, seamlessly slipped back into his mask of peacefulness.  

“Oh, ah- Yes! If you’d come with me child?” So while Mama went off with Father Julio, Maite began following the younger priest towards an empty pew near the back. As they walked, Maite looked at the intricate decorations inside the church.

Maite noted the room was unusually long for how narrow it was. The ceiling stretched high enough that long iron chandeliers hung down from the ceiling down to about half way to the floor. The walls were spanned by long intricate window that came to an end in an arched point at the top. Most of them had colorful images of people and animals on them. Maite noted the way the light shinning through them painted the floor and pews in a pretty myriad of colors.

But what really caught the girl’s attention was the hyper realistic statue of a gaunt young man hanging from a cross wearing what looked like a crown of spikes. Maite was enthralled by the image and had stopped following Father Matias in order to get a better look at it.

Once the man realized his charge was no longer following him, he looked at what had caught her attention and said, “Did the Jesus of Nazareth get your attention, my child?”

Maite, finally looking away from the statue, raised an eyebrow and asked, “Is that his name?”

The priest blinked once and then motioned for her to sit down on the pew. Once they’d both taken a seat by the statue, he began speaking, “Yes, Maite. He was Jesus Christ, son of God and the Virgin Mary. He was sent to earth by his father and ultimately died for humanity’s sins.”

Maite blinked and looked up at the man with a frown. She didn’t understand half of the words he’d just said. And just what the heck was a sin, anyways? She didn’t really want him to try to teach her anymore, however, so she just nodded and quietly went back to looking at the church’s decorations.

She’d just ask Mama later. She clearly knew about the church. Or maybe she could ask Father Julio. He seemed much nicer than Father Matias.

Either of them would be better than this guy.

 

* * *

 

María pushed her way through the crowds that had descended on the _Avenida Libertad_ street that morning for the bi-weekly Juarez _Tianguis_. Besides her, both of her younger siblings, each reluctantly being stringed along by the hand, followed her.

They’d gotten bored of the flea market’s toy stalls and had decided to go find their mother and tío, who were further inside the stands looking for whatever it was Mama wanted to use for cooking that week.

María heard Santiago’s quiet voice chime in from her left, “I think they should be around Don Francisco’s stall. Mom said she was looking for fresh nopales.”

Not having any better leads, the girl shrugged and began pushing her way towards where she knew that particular grocer tended to set up.

The family -minus Papa, who’d left late last night to run a quick job- had decided to spend their Tuesday morning helping Laura get groceries.

While the kids did often accompany their mother either individually or in pairs, with the addition of tío Rafael, they’d all been able to come together today.

María knew Mama and Rafael were looking for groceries to make an old dish Mama’s family apparently used to prepare when she was younger. Now that the older woman had finally come out with the dramatic story of their family, she’d become a flurry of weird lessons and traditions.

Tío Rafael, who’d apparently been the culprit behind her mother’s change of heart on telling the kids their history, had only been too happy to help the woman shove old family customs down the three kids throats.

The young criminal-in-training had mixed feelings over the whole affair.

On one hand, her mother had been a member of a high-brow crime family in her youth. The Paso Norte had apparently been the top dogs of the northern part of the state of Chihuahua since the Cristero War, where they’d gained notoriety for their direct action against the state-sanctioned religious oppression.

And that was pretty nice, especially because María fully supported religious freedom for people and all that, but apparently her maternal family had been the local sugar daddies for the Roman Catholic church in the state for half of the nineteenth century.

In other words, her mother had been somewhat of a low-key, religious nut.

Seeing as Nicole had been somewhat of a radical liberal in her views for most of her brief adult life, María herself doubted she’d have an easy time reconciling her family’s Catholic values with her own.

Not that her family was about to restart preaching and bankrolling the little church down the street any time soon. They _had_ been wealthy and affluent. _In the past._

But it had all burned down when the other big criminal syndicate in the region, the Chihuahua Cartel, a primarily drug-distributing syndicate that had risen to prominence during the sixties, had made a move to claim the Paso Norte’s territory.

To María that made sense. Even in her old life, Juarez, as well as the entirety of the U.S.-Mexico border, had been a famously dangerous place due to the prominent cartel activity there. From what she remembered, it was mostly turf wars to see who would get to smuggle drugs to the States.

Really, it was _no wonder_ a whole cartel had been wiped out purely due to the strategic advantage that controlling their territory entailed. The girl was honestly surprised they hadn’t been killed off even earlier due to it. They had not had a big stake in the Narco trade, anyway.

Instead, from her mother’s stories it sounded more like they’d been a mix of racketeering and white-collar crime which, to María, seemed much more reminiscent of the American Mob instead.

Still, even though she hadn’t known about it all before, hearing her mother describing the methodical way in which her actual family had been picked off had been heart wrenching.

María didn’t have much experience with the death of other people she cared about neither in this life nor her last, but she really wished she could have met the uncles Mama had told them about.

Laura had apparently been the only daughter of Don Ernesto Velasquez, the head of the Paso Norte during the late sixties up to the seventies. She’d been the youngest of five, with all her elder siblings being boys. Cristobal, Lorenzo, Pancho, and Agustín had been the four sons of the Paso Norte main family, and according to her mother, had all been talented criminals, but even better older brothers.  

And they’d all been slowly picked off by the assassins until only a teenage Laura had remained. The Chihuahua simply hadn’t bothered with her. She’d been too young and too not-male to pose any threat to the Chihuahua, so after ransacking her father’s houses and accounts for all they were worth, they’d left her homeless and poor. An orphaned girl with nowhere to go, Mama had been forced to live on the streets until she’d managed to snatch the few things the Chihuahua had missed.

She’d used most of it to finance her start as a freelance worker for criminal groups like Papa still did today, but instead of doing hits, soldier training, and body guarding, she instead worked in intel gathering and providing tutoring to other young cartel princesses in the ways of upper-crust crime.

After a couple years of that she’d stumbled by chance on one of the old low-level Paso Norte foot soldiers. One Ramiro Rodriguez, who’d escaped the Chihuahua’s culling and had also gone to work freelance with an Argentinian man, Rafael Ricci.

And the rest had been history.

Mama, now back to her old ways, however, was determined to teach her kids the ways of old Paso Norte heirs as if the dynasty was still around, however, and that was slightly alarming to María.

She was going to have to become a Catholic. Which, was a slight problem if you considered that she didn’t really believe in, well, God?

María had been _reincarnated_ for fuck’s sake. If anything, she should be considering joining a religion that would be corroborated by that. She may have been a Catholic-in-Name-Only in her past life, (she’d been baptized mostly due to family tradition, but hadn’t completed any sacraments beyond that) but she wasn’t exactly cut out to be one of the faithful this time around.

She supposed she’d go along with it for her family’s sake, but she wouldn’t exactly get any spiritual benefits out of it. Heck, she’d already killed 5 men. If God was real, she was probably going to go to the bad place either way.

Actually, if that was the case, why would a criminal organization be religious? Did they have permission from the church to do terrible things?

María was so caught up in her own thoughts she almost missed her Mama and Uncle haggling with Don Francisco over a basket of _tunas._ It was only Maite’s pull on her sleeve toward them that got her out of her funk.

She should really try to focus more on her surroundings. Constant vigilance and all that.

“Mama! Tio! Are you done yet?!” Maite had apparently been really sold on the whole religion idea, though. She’d come back from Sunday Mass talking about Jesus Christ and God and somebody named Father Julio. Tío Rafael had been so pleased by her excitement he’d promised to get her a rosary once they were done with the shopping.

As a result, she’d been especially annoying today.

María was becoming increasingly more certain with every passing hour, that organized religion was going to be an annoying inconvenience.

“There you three are! Had fun in the stalls?” María wasn’t about to share that she no longer saw the appeal in the cheap plastic trinkets after gaining the memories of a college student, so she just gave a non-committal hum.

At least it had been fun for the twins. Santiago had been enthralled by a not-all-that-cheap Tamagotchi rip-off. And Maite may have been distracted by the promise of a rosary, but even she had gone through a basket of Barbie dolls.

María buried her hands into her pockets. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her siblings since her uncle started teaching her. Between them going to day care and her being out on the warehouses all day, they’d barely gotten a chance to just be together even thought they all shared a single room now.

She should really ask her uncle about letting her have days off like this one more often.

While Santiago and Maite harassed their tío with recounting the things they saw at the stall and asking about rosaries, María was approached by her mother.

“Thank you for looking after them, _mija._ But next time just tell me you don’t enjoy going to the stall. I’ll just sick them on your tío instead. Okay?” María blinked. She wasn’t surprised her mother had seen right through her. Laura was scarily good at reading people. She still looked down in embarrassment, however.

“Okay, Mama.” Taking her mother’s offered hand, the two followed behind Rafael and the twins, who were perched on his back and arms respectively. Her mother continued.

“You know,” the older brunette began, “Your birthday is coming up. Have you though about what you want this year?”

María honestly hadn’t even remembered her birthday date -January 31, her brain supplied helpfully- but she had thought about something she’d been meaning to ask her parents for.

“Yeah, actually…” She really hoped her parents let her have this one.

After all, María may have been born in the eighties, but Nicole had been a child of the two thousands.

She was in desperate need of a computer.

 

* * *

 

That night María laid awake staring at the ceiling of her and her siblings’ shared room. She knew she would pay for her episode of insomnia later this morning when Rafael woke her up for her morning laps, but it seemed like taking a day off from training was enough to get her to want to vibrate out of her own skin with excess Sun flames.

She raised a hand up above her and, with a simple thought, watched as a handful of red and yellow sparks came forth from her fingertips.

She managed her flames much more easily now, and it only helped whenever she meditated before training. And what a difference having some control of her flames did. María would never be able to repay her tío for not letting her give up on her flames.

It was _magical_. She could light herself on _freaking fire._

Just thinking about it made her feel giddy with childish excitement. The joy seemed to make her flames shift from mere sparks to something more closely resembling an actual burning fire. And Sun flames were _very_ bright.

Quickly smothering the flames as to not wake her sleeping siblings up, María took a second to calm down. Doing some square breathing for a few seconds, the girl furrowed deeper into her bed and let one last breath out.

Meditation, as it turned out, had been the key to getting her flames to listen. Her uncle had _really_ been onto something when he’d gotten her started on the breathing exercises.  

At first, the “mindfulness” aspect had seemed like a weird new age scam somebody had tricked her uncle with, but María had quickly learned that the man hadn’t been tripping on something once he’d walked her through a couple meditation exercises.

In retrospect, meditation made sense to María. When they’d begun with her training, she’d been trying to spark her flames using her emotions. After all, from what she’d remembered of the series, whenever Tsuna got his flames to work he’d been running high on some emotion or other. Getting flames, therefore, must have been tied to somebody’s inner feelings.

María had been somewhat on the ball. As she’d since figured out, emotions _did_ play a role in getting flames to happen. They fueled dying will flames like gasoline did a normal fire.

She’d been missing the spark, however.

The eight-year-old had needed to _visualize_ her flames doing something for the strong emotions to fuel them. At first, she’d assumed just focusing on the plank would be enough but dying will flames were much trickier than that. Flames needed a clear objective in order to function.

Which made sense. Otherwise, flame users would be lighting themselves up left and right whenever they felt anything beyond apathy.

So, flames needed a clear intent in order to manifest. And sometimes, the visualization had to be very specific.

Uncle Rafael had told her about an Italian colleague who’d perfected a lightning flame chain which made any barrier electrified. Whenever people touched the outside of the wall, they’d be fried. The set up had been energy intensive, however, so the Italian had had to make the flame spread out in a wire fence formation in order to not run their flames dry in minutes. That had required a strong will and visualization.

Other times however, flames could run wild and come up with “plans of action” with as little input of the user as possible.

Usually, when first awakening flames under duress, new users accidentally did this, and channeled their flames to do their own thing in order to save them. According to her tío, María’d done this exact thing when her flames had taken out the people who’d tried to kill her and Mama, and then healed her bullet wound in minutes.

The flame hadn’t just burned the men randomly, but instead had taken a more discreet and energy efficient approach and had targeted the men internally.

Her tío had said whatever flames did in such occasions would later be some of the more natural and easy skills for the user to perform later. For obvious reasons, the girl had not tried to do a second performance on some person on the street, but she’d tried it on random objects she’d found.

The results she’d gotten so far had been somewhat chaotic.

Trying it out on plants and trees usually made them explode. Her flame naturally targeting the sap or water inside the plant and heating it up till it went boom.  

In plastic things, her flames just slowly ate away at random spots until the whole thing disintegrated, usually releasing clouds of chemically smelling smoke.

After getting a lung full of the smoke and a hand covered in splinters she’d stopped further testing until she could get her hands on a gas mask and some protective clothing.

She’d also refrained from testing her new self-healing abilities. Getting the knowledge of her new limits was important, but she wasn’t exactly in the mood to shoot herself in the stomach. It wasn’t like anybody in the family was going to help her injure herself either.

So, flame training had pretty much ended for the time being. Most of it was instinctual according to her tio, and she wasn’t exactly going to be needing advanced flame fighting skills as an 8-year-old.

Most of her training time was actually starting to be devoted to history lessons taught by Mama to her and her siblings. María, who’d been pulled out of formal schooling, was quickly catching up to her peers in all subjects plus a few more her mother and tío had deemed important. They’d started all three children on foreign languages and first aid lessons, both of which María had taken a liking to.

She could put up with the “learning” basic education as long as she wasn’t forced to do it at the pace of kids her age. She wasn’t advertising it, but she had the education of a college student. Going over the basics of mathematics, reading, and biology wasn’t exactly riveting to her at this point.

Mafia history was insanely interesting, however. Nobody in her first life had told Nicole how much influence the Cartels had had in shaping Mexico and the rest of the world’s history. Or maybe it was just in this world that the underworld had this much influence. The existence of flames must have had some sort of larger impact on the world after all.

Ugh, the light from the closed shutters was starting to lighten from complete darkness to a lighter blue. She really needed to stop thinking and try to get some sleep.

Finally, cutting off the sparks shooting off her fingers, María turned to her left and looked at her sleeping siblings.

Maite slept like she was dead. She slept face down and her breathing was so light one could barely even see her chest move in the darkness of their room.

Santiago on the other hand, fidgeted like the four-year-old he was. He made tiny little noises with every breath he took, and throughout the night María had seen him move enough to throw his own blanket completely off the bed and down to the cold floors.

She quietly got out of bed and tiptoed up to the foot of her brother’s bed. She threw the covers over his sleeping form and turned to sneak back into her own bed.

“’o back to bed.. and turn off the ligh’” María barely heard Maite’s muffled complaint. Not like she was planning on doing something else.

“Yeah, yeah. Just shut up.”

A sleepily indignant grunt was the only answer María got. Once she sunk back into the warmth of her bed it did not take her long to pass out once and for all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to SetmisQueen for letting me run things by her and to the people of the KHR discord who let me pick their brains for ideas for this fic! Without your help this would not be possible.


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